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Miiomiht Ctittcatfonal jEonosrapl^iS 

EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO 

PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 
TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



NEW IDEALS 
IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

BY 

GEORGE HERBERT BETTS, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY 
CORNELL COLLEGE, IOWA 




HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 



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COPYRIGHT, I913, BY GEORGE HERBERT BETTS 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



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CONTENTS 

Editor's Introduction v 

Preface ix 

I. The Rural School and its Problem . i 

II. The Social CRGANiZAttON of the 

Rural School . 25 

III. The Curriculum of the Rural School 57 

IV. The Teaching of the Rural School . 92 
Outline 121 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

In presenting a second monograph on the rural 
school problem in this series we register our 
sense of the importance of rural education. Too 
long have the rural schools suffered from neg- 
lect. Both the local communities and the State 
have overlooked the needs of the rural school 
system. At the present hour there is an earnest 
awakening of interest in rural life and its insti- 
tutions. Already there is a small but certain 
movement of people toward the country and the 
vocation of agriculture. A period of agricultu- 
ral prosperity, the reaction of men and women 
against the artificialities of city life, the devel- 
opment of farming through the application of 
science, and numerous other factors have made 
country life more congenial and have focused 
attention upon its further needs. It is natural, 
therefore, that the rural school should receive an 
increased share of attention. 

Educational administrators, legislators, and 
publicists have become aware of their responsi- 
bility to provide the financial support and the 
efficient organization that is needed to develop 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

country schools. The more progressive of them 
are striving earnestly to provide laws that will 
aid rather than hamper the rural school system. 
In his monograph on The Improvement of the 
Rural School^ Professor Cubberley has done 
much to interpret current efforts of this type. 
From the standpoint of state administration he 
has contributed much definite information and 
constructive suggestion as to how the State 
shall respond to the fundamental need for (i) 
more money, (2) better organization, and (3) real 
supervision for rural schools. 

It is not so clear, however, that rural patrons, 
school directors, and teachers have become fully 
aware of their duty in the matter of rural school 
improvement. To be sure much has been done 
by way of experiment in many rural communi- 
ties ; but it can scarcely be said that rural com- 
munities in general are thoroughly awake to the 
importance of their schools. The evidence to the 
contrary is cumulative. The first immediate need 
is to reawaken interest in the school as a center 
of rural life, and to suggest ways and means of 
transmuting this communal interest into effect- 
ive institutional methods. To this end, Professor 
Betts has been asked to treat the rural school 
problem from a standpoint somewhat different 
vi 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

from that assumed by Professor Cubberley; 
that is, from the point of view of the local com- 
munity immediately related to, and concerned 
with, the rural school. In consequence his pres- 
entation emphasizes the things that ought to be 
done by the local authorities, — parent, trustee, 
and teacher. Its soundness may well be judged 
by the pertinent order of his discussion. Having 
stated his problem, he initiates his discussion by 
suggesting how the social relations of the school 
are to be reorganized ; only later does he pass 
to the detail of curricula and teaching methods. 
It is a clear recognition of the fact that the com- 
munity is the crucial factor in the making of a 
school. The State by sound fiscal and legisla- 
tive policies may do much to make possible a 
better country school ; but only the local author- 
ities can realize it. The trained teacher with 
modern notions of efficiency may attempt to en- 
large the curriculum and to employ newer meth- 
ods of teaching, but his talents are useless if he 
is hampered by a conservative, unappreciative, 
and indifferent community. When the school 
becomes a social center of the community's in- 
terest and life, there will be no difficulty in 
achieving any policy which the State permits or 
which a skilled teacher urges. Scattered schools 
vii 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

will be consolidated, and isolated ungraded schools 
will be improved. Given an interested commun- 
ity, the modern teacher can vitalize every feature 
of the school, changing the formal curriculum 
into an interesting and liberalizing interpretation 
of country life and the pedantic drills and tasks 
of instruction into a skillful ministry to real and 
abiding human wants. 



PREFACE 

No rural population has yet been able perma- 
nently to maintain itself against the lure of the 
town or the city. Each civilization at one stage 
of its development comprises a large proportion 
of rural people. But the urban movement soon 
begins, and continues until all are living in vil- 
lages, towns, and cities. Such has been the move- 
ment of population in all the older countries of 
high industrial development, as England, France, 
and Germany. A similar movement is at present 
going on rapidly in the United States. 

No great social movement ever comes by 
chance; it is always to be explained by deep- 
seated and adequate causes. The causes lying 
back of the rapid growth of our cities at the ex- 
pense of our rural districts are very far from 
simple. They involve a great complex of social, 
educational, and economic forces. As the spirit 
of adventure and pioneering finds less to stimu- 
late it, the gregarious impulse, th@ tendency to 
flock together for our work and our play, gains 
in ascendency. Growing out of the greater intel- 
lectual opportunities and demands of modern 
ix 



PREFACE 

times, the standard of education has greatly ad- 
vanced. And under the incentive of present-day 
economic success and luxury, comfortable cir- 
cumstances and a moderate competence no longer 
satisfy our people. Hence they turn to the city, 
looking to find there the coveted social, educa- 
tional, or economic opportunities. 

It is doubtful, therefore, whether, even with 
improved conditions of country life, the urbaniza- 
tion of our rural people can be wholly checked. 
But it can be greatly retarded if the right agen- 
cies are set at work. The rural school should be 
made and can be made one of the most important 
of these agencies, although at the present time 
its influence is chiefly negative. With the hope 
of offering some help, however slight, in adjust- 
ing the rural school to its problem, this little vol- 
ume is written by one who himself belongs to the 
rural community by birth and early education 
and occupation. 

G. H. B. 

Cornell College, February^ 191 3. 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL 
SCHOOLS 



THE RURAL SCHOOL AND ITS PROBLEM 

The general problem of the rural school 

The general problem of the rural school is the 
same as that of any other type of school — to 
render to the community the largest possible 
returns upon its investment in education with 
the least possible waste. Schools are great edu- 
cation factories set up at public expense. The 
raw material consists of the children of succeed- 
ing generations, helpless and inefficient because 
of ignorance and immaturity. The school is to 
turn out as its product men and women ready and 
able to take up their part in the great world of 
activities going on about them. It is in this way, 
in efficient education, that society gets its return 
for its investment in the schools. 

The word "education" has in recent years 
been taking on a new and more vital meaning. 
In earlier times the value of education was as- 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

sumed, or vaguely taken on faith. Education was 
supposed to consist of so much "learning," or a 
given amount of "discipline," or a certain quantity 
of "culture." Under the newer definition, educa- 
tion may include all these things, but it must do 
more ; it must relate itself immediately and con- 
cretely to the business of living. We no longer 
inquire of one how much he knows, or the degree 
to which his powers have been " cultivated " ; but 
rather to what extent his education has led to 
a more fruitful life in the home, the state, the 
church, and other social institutions ; how largely 
it has helped him to more effective work in a 
worthy occupation ; and whether it has resulted 
in greater enjoyment and appreciation of the 
finer values of personal experience, — in short, 
whether for him education spells efficiency. 

We are thus coming to see that education must 
enable the individual to meet the real problems 
of actual experience as they are confronted in 
the day's life. Nor can the help rendered be in- 
definite, intangible, or in any degree uncertain. 
It must definitely adjust one to his place, and 
cause him to grow in it, accomplishing the most 
for himself and for society ; it must add to the 
largeness of his personal life, and at the same 
time increase his working efficiency. 



THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM 

This is to say that one's education must (i) 
furnish him with the particular knowledge re- 
quired for the life that he is to live, whether it 
be in the shop, on the farm, or in the profession. 
For knowledge lies at the basis of all efficiency 
and success in whatever occupation. Education 
must (2) shape the attitude, so that the individ- 
ual will confront his part of the world's work or 
its play in the right spirit. It must not leave him 
a parasite, whether from wealth or from poverty, 
ready to prey upon others ; but must make him 
willing and glad to do his share. Education must 
(3) also give the individual training in technique^ 
or the skill required in his different activities ; 
not to do this is at best but to leave him a well- 
informed and well-intentioned bungler, falling 
far short of efficiency. 

The great function of the school, therefore, is 
to supply the means by which the requisite 
knowledge^ attitude, and skill can be developed. 
It is true that the child does not depend on the 
school alone for his knowledge, his attitude, and 
his skill. For the school is only one of many in- 
fluences operating on his life. Much of the most 
vital knowledge is not taught in the school but 
picked up outside; a great part of the child's 
attitude toward life is formed through the rela- 

3 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

tions of the home, the community, and the vari- 
ous other points of contact with society; and 
much of his skill in doing is developed in a thou- 
sand ways without being taught. Yet the fact 
remains that the school is organized and sup- 
ported by society to make sure about these things, 
to see that the child does not lack in knowledge, 
attitude, or skill. They must not be left to chance ; 
where the educative influences outside the school 
have not been sufficient, the school must take 
hold. Its part is to supplement and organize with 
conscious purpose what the other agencies have 
accomplished in the education of the child. The 
ultimate purpose of the school is to make certain 
of efficiency. 

The means by which the school is to accom- 
plish these ends are (i) the social organization 
of the school, or the life and activities that go on 
in the school from day to day ; (2) the curricu- 
lunty or the subject-matter which the child is given 
to master ; and (3) the instruction or the work 
of the teacher in helping the pupils to master 
the subject-matter of the curriculum and adjust 
themselves to the organization of the school. 

These factors will of necessity differ, however, 
according to the particular type of school in 
question. It will therefore be necessary to inquire 

4 



THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM 

iittto the special problem of the rural school be- 
fore entering into a discussion of the means by 
which it is to accomplish its aim. 

The special problem of the rural school 

Each type of school has not only its general 
problem which is common to all schools, but also 
its special problem which makes it different from 
every other class of schools. The special prob- 
lem of any type of school grows out of the nature 
and needs of the community which supports the 
school. Thus the city school, whose pupils are to 
live the industrial and social life of an urban com- 
munity, confronts a different problem from that 
of a rural school, whose pupils are to live in a 
farming community. Each type of school must 
suit its curriculum, its organization, and its in- 
struction to the demands to be met by its pupils. 
The knowledge taught, the attitudes and tastes 
developed, and the skill acquired must be related 
to the life to be lived and the responsibilities to 
be undertaken. 

The rural school must therefore be different 
in many respects from the town and city school. 
In its organization, its curriculum, and its spirit, 
it must be adapted to the requirements of the 
rural community. For, while many pupils from 

5 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

the rural schools ultimately follow other occupa- 
tions than farming, yet the primary function of 
the rural school is to educate for the life of the 
farm. It thus becomes evident that the only way 
to understand the problem of the rural school is 
first to understand the rural community. What 
are its industries, the character of its people, 
their economic status, their standards of living, 
their needs, their social life ? 

The rural community is industrially homogen- 
eous. There exists here no such a diversified 
mixture of industries as in the city. All are en- 
gaged in the same line of work. Agriculture 
is the sole occupation. Hence the economic in- 
terests and problems all center around this one 
line. The success or failure of crops, the intro- 
duction of a different method of cultivation or a 
new variety of grain, or the invention of an agri- 
cultural implement interests all alike. The farmer 
engaged in planting his corn knows that for miles 
around all other farmers are similarly employed; 
if he is cutting his hay or harvesting his grain, 
hundreds of other mowing machines and harvest- 
ers are at work on surrounding farms. 

This fund of common interest and experience 
tends to social as well as industrial homogeneity. 
Good-fellowship, social responsiveness and neigh- 
6 



THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM 

borliness rest on a basis of common labor, com- 
mon problems, and common welfare. Like-mind- 
edness and the spirit of cooperation are after all 
more a matter of similar occupational interests 
than of nationality. 

Another factor tending to make the rural com- 
munity socially more homogeneous than the city 
community is its relatively stable population, 
and the fact that the stream of immigration is 
slow in reaching the farm. It is true that the 
European nations are well represented among 
our agricultural population; but for the most 
part they are not foreigners of the first genera- 
tion. They have assimilated the American spirit, 
and become familiar with American institutions. 
The great flood of raw immigrants fresh from 
widely diverse nations stops in the large cen- 
ters of population, and does not reach the farm. 

The prevailing spirit of democracy is still 
another influence favoring homogeneity in the 
rural community. Much less of social stratifica- 
tion exists in the country than in the city. Social 
planes are not so clearly defined nor so rigidly 
maintained. Financial prosperity is more likely 
to take the direction of larger barns and more 
acres than of social ostentation and exclusiveness. 

America has no servile and ignorant peasan- 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

try. The agricultural class constituting our rural 
population represents a high grade of natural 
intelligence and integrity. Great political and 
moral reforms find more favorable soil in the 
rural regions than in the cities. The demagogue 
and the " boss " find farmers impossible to con- 
trol to their selfish ends. Vagabonds and idlers 
are out of place among them. They are a hard- 
headed, capable, and industrious class. As a rule, 
American farmers are well-to-do, not only earn- 
ing a good living for their families, but constantly 
extending their holdings. Their farms are in- 
creasingly well improved, stocked, and supplied 
with labor-saving and efficient machinery. Their 
land is constantly growing in value, and at the 
same time yielding larger returns for the money 
and labor invested in it. 

The standard of living is distinctly lower in 
farm homes than in town and city homes of the 
same financial status. The house is generally 
comfortable, but small. It is behind the times in 
many easily accessible modern conveniences pos- 
sessed by the great majority of city dwellers. 
The bath, modern plumbing and heating, the 
refrigerator, and other kindred appliances can be 
had in the country home as well as the city. 
Their lack is a matter of standards rather than 
8 



THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM 

of necessity. They will be introduced into thou- 
sands of rural homes as soon as their need is 
realized. 

The possibilities for making the rural home 
beautiful and attractive are unequaled in the city 
for any except the very rich. It is not necessary 
that the farmhouse shall be crowded for space ; 
its outlook and surroundings can be arranged to 
give it an aesthetic quality wholly impossible in 
the ordinary city home. That this is true is 
proved by many inexpensive farmhouses that are 
a delight to the eye. On the other hand, it must 
be admitted that a large proportion of farmhouses 
are lacking in both architectural attractiveness 
and environmental effect. Not infrequently the 
barns and sheds are so placed as to crowd the 
house into the background, and the yards for stock 
allowed to infringe upon the domain of the gar- 
den and the lawn. All this can be easily reme- 
died and will be when the aesthetic taste of the 
dwellers on the farm comes to be offended by the 
incongruous and ugly. 

No stinting in the abundance of food is known 
on the farm. The farmer supplies the tables of 
the world, and can himself live off the fat of the 
land. Grains, vegetables, meats, eggs, butter, 
milk, and fruits are his stock in trade. If there 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

is any lack in the farmer's table, it is due to care- 
lessness in providing or preparing the food, and 
not to forced economy. 

While the farming population in general live 
well, yet many tables are lacking in variety, 
especially in fruit and vegetables. Time and 
interest are so taken up with the larger affairs 
of crops and stock, that the garden goes by de- 
fault in many instances. There is no market read- 
ily at hand offering fruit and vegetables for sale 
as in the city, and hence the farm table loses 
in attractiveness to the appetite and in hygienic 
excellence. It is probable that the prosperous 
city workman sits down to a better table than 
does the farmer, in spite of the great advantage 
possessed by the latter. 

The population of rural communities is neces- 
sarily scattering. The nature of farming renders 
it impossible for people to herd together as is 
the case in many other industries. This has its 
good side, but also its bad. There are no rural 
slums for the breeding of poverty and crime; 
but on the other hand, there is an isolation and 
monotony that tend to become deadening in their 
effects on the individual. Stress and over-strain 
does not all come from excitement and the rush 
of competition ; it may equally well originate in 

10 



THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM 

lack of variety and unrelieved routine. How true 
this is is seen in the fact that insanity, caused in 
this instance chiefly by the stress of monotony, 
prevails among the farming people of frontier 
communities out of all proportion to the normal 
ratio. 

Farming is naturally the most healthful of 
the industrial occupations. The work is for the 
greater part done in the open air and sunshine, 
and possesses sufficient variety to be interesting. 
The rural population constitutes the high vital- 
ity class of the nation, and must be constantly 
drawn upon to supply the brain, brawn, and nerve 
for the work of the city. The farmer is, on the 
whole, prosperous ; he is therefore hopeful and 
cheerful, and labors in good spirit. That so many 
farmers and farmers' wives break down or age 
prematurely is due, not to the inherent nature of 
their work, but to a lack of balance in the life of 
the farm. It is not so much the work that kills, 
as the continuity of the w^r^ unrelieved by periods 
of rest and recreation. With the opportunities 
highly favorable for the best type of healthful 
living, no inconsiderable proportion of our agri- 
cultural population are shortening their lives and 
lowering their efficiency by unnecessary over- 
strain and failure to conform to the most funda- 
II 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

mental and elementary laws of hygienic living, 
especially with reference to the relief from labor 
that comes through change and recreation. 

The rural community affords few opportunities 
for social recreations and amusements. Not only 
are the people widely separated from each other 
by distance, but the work of the farm is exacting, 
and often requires all the hours of the day not 
demanded for sleep. While the city offers many 
opportunities for choice of recreation or amuse- 
ment, the country affords almost none. The city 
worker has his evenings, usually Saturday after- 
noon, and all day Sunday free to use as he chooses. 
Such is not the case on the farm ; for after the 
day iji the field the chores must be done, and 
the stock cared for. And even on Sunday, the 
routine must be carried out. The work of the 
farm has a tendency, therefore, to become much 
of a grind, and certainly will become so unless 
some limit is set to the exactions of farm labor on 
the time and strength of the worker. It separates 
the individual from his fellows in the greater 
part of the farm work and gives him little oppor- 
tunity for social recreations or play. 

One of the best evidences that the conditions 
of life and work on the farm need to be improved 
is the number of people who are leaving the 

12 



THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM 

farm for the city. This movement has been 
especially rapid during the last thirty years of 
our history, and has continued until approxi- 
mately one half our people now live in towns or 
cities. Not only is this loss of agricultural popu- 
lation serious to farming itself, creating a short- 
age of labor for the work of the farm, but it re- 
sults in crowding other occupations already too 
full. There is no doubt that we have too many 
lawyers, doctors, merchants, clerks, and the like 
for the number of workers engaged in fundamen- 
tal productive vocations. Smaller farms, culti- 
vated intensively, would be a great economic 
advantage to the country, and would take care of 
a far larger proportion of our people than are 
now engaged in agriculture. 

All students of social affairs agree that the 
movement of our people to towns and cities 
should be checked and the tide turned the other 
way. So important is the matter considered that 
a concerted national movement has recently 
been undertaken to study the conditions of rural 
life with a view to making it more attractive and 
so stopping the drain to the city. 

Middle-aged farmers move to the town or city 
for two principal reasons : to educate their child- 
ren and to escape from the monotony of rural 

13 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

life. Young people desert the farm for the city 
for a variety of reasons, prominent among which 
are a desire for better education, escape from 
the monotony and grind of the farm life, and the 
opportunity for the social advantages and rec- 
reations of the city. That the retired farmer is 
usually disappointed and unhappy in his town 
home, and that the youth often finds the glamour 
of the city soon to fade, is true. But this does 
not solve the problem. The flux to the town or 
city still goes on, and will continue to do so until 
the natural desire for social and intellectual op- 
portunities and for recreation and amusement is 
adequately met in rural life. 

Farming as an industry has already felt the 
effects of a new interest in rural life. Probably 
no other industrial occupation has undergone 
such rapid changes within the last generation as 
has agriculture. The rapid advance in the value 
of land, the introduction of new forms of farm 
machinery, and above all the application of sci- 
ence to the raising of crops and stock, have al- 
most reconstructed the work of the farm within 
a decade. 

Special " corn trains " and "dairy trains " have 
traversed nearly every county in many States, 
teaching the farmers scientific methods. Lectur- 

14 



THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEMJ 

ers on scientific agriculture have found their way 
into many communities. The Federal Govern- 
ment has encouraged in every way the spread of 
information and the development of enthusiasm 
in agriculture. The agricultural schools have 
given courses of instruction during the winter to 
farmers. Farmers* institutes have been organ- 
ized ; corn-judging and stock-judging contests 
have been held ; prizes have been offered for the 
best results in the raising of grains, vegetables, 
or stock. New varieties of grains have been in- 
troduced, improved methods of cultivation dis- 
covered, and means of enriching and conserving 
the soil devised. Stock-breeding and the care of 
animals is rapidly becoming a science. Farming 
bids fair soon to become one of the skilled occu- 
pations. 

Such, then, is a brief view of the situation of 
which the rural school is a part. It ministers to 
the education of almost half of the American 
people. This industrial group are engaged in the 
most fundamental of all occupations, the one 
upon which all national welfare and progress 
depend. They control a large part of the wealth 
of the country, the capital invested in agriculture 
being more than double that invested in manu- 
factures. Agricultural wealth is rapidly increas- 

15 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

ing, both through the rise in the value of land 
and through improved methods of farming. The 
conditions of life on the farm have greatly im- 
proved during the last decade. Rural telephones 
reach almost every home ; free mail delivery is 
being rapidly extended in almost every section of 
the country ; the automobile is coming to be a part 
of the equipment of many farms ; and the trolley 
is rapidly pushing out along the country roads. 

Yet, in spite of these hopeful tendencies, the 
rural community shows signs of deterioration in 
many places. Rural population is steadily de- 
creasing in proportion to the total aggregate of 
population. Interest in education is at a low ebb, 
the farm children having educational opportuni- 
ties below those of any other class of our people. 
For, while town and city schools have been 
improving until they show a high type of effi- 
ciency, the rural school has barely held its own, 
or has, in many places, even gone backward. 
The rural community confronts a puzzling prob- 
lem which is still far from solution. 

Certain points of attack upon this problem are, 
however, perfectly clear and obvious. Firsty edu- 
cational facilities must be improved for rural 
children, and their education be better adapted to 
farm life ; second^ greater opportunities must be 
i6 



THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM 

provided for recreation and social intercourse for 
both young and old ; thirds the program of farm 
work must be arranged to allow reasonable time 
for rest and recreation ; fourth^ books, pictures, 
lectures, concerts, and entertainments must be 
as accessible to the farm as to the town. These 
conditions must be met, not because of the dic- 
tum of any person, but because they are a funda- 
mental demand of human nature, and must be 
reckoned with. 

What, then, is the relation of the rural school 
to these problems of the rural community .? How 
can it be a factor in their solution } What are its 
opportunities and responsibilities ? 

The adjustment of the rural school to its 
problem 

As has been already stated, the problem of any 
type of school is to serve its constituency. This 
is to be done through relating the curriculum, 
the organization, and the teaching of the school 
to the immediate interests and needs of the peo- 
ple dependent on the school for their education. 
That the rural school has not yet fully adjusted 
itself to its problem need hardly be argued. 

It has as good material to work upon in the 
boys and girls from the farm as any type of schools 

17 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

in the country. They come of good stock ; they 
are healthy and vigorous ; and they are early 
trained to serious work and responsibility. Yet 
a very large proportion of these children possess 
hardly the rudiments of an education when they 
quit the rural school. Many of them go to school 
for only a few months in the year, compulsory 
education laws either being laxly enforced or else 
altogether lacking. A very small percentage of 
the children of the farm ever complete eight 
grades of schooling, and not a large proportion 
finish more than half of this amount. 

This leaves the child who has to depend on the 
rural school greatly handicapped in education. 
He has but a doubtful proficiency in the me- 
chanics of reading, and has read but little. He 
knows the elements of spelling, writing, and num- 
ber, but has small skill in any of them. He knows 
little of history or literature, less of music, no- 
thing of art, and has but a superficial smattering 
of science. Of matters relating to his life and 
activities on the farm he has heard almost no- 
thing. The rural child is not illiterate, but he is 
too close to the border of illiteracy for the de- 
mands of a twentieth-century civilization ; it is 
fair neither to the child nor to society. 

The rural school seems in some way relatively 
i8 



THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM 

to have lost ground in our educational system. 
The grades of the town school have felt the 
stimulus of the high school for which they are 
preparing, and have had the care and supervision 
of competent administrators. The rural school is 
isolated and detached, and has had no adequate 
administrative system to care for its interests. 
No wonder, then, that certain grave faults in ad- 
justment have grown up. A few of the most 
obvious of these faults may next claim our atten- 
tion. 

The rural school is inadequate in its scope. 
The children of the farm have as much need for 
education and as much right to it as those who 
live in towns and cities. Yet the rural school as a 
rule never attempts to offer more than the eight 
grades of the elementary curriculum, and seldom 
reaches this amount. It not infrequently hap- 
pens that no pupils are in attendance beyond 
the fifth or the sixth grade. This may be due 
either to the small number of children in the dis- 
trict, or, more often, to lack of interest to continue 
in school beyond the simplest elements of read- 
ing, writing, and number. It is true that certain 
States, such as Illinois and Wisconsin, have es- 
tablished a system of township high schools, 
where secondary education equal to that to be 

19 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

had in the cities is available to rural children. 
In other States a county high school is main- 
tained for the benefit of rural school graduates. 
In still others, arrangements are made by which 
those who complete the eight grades of rural 
schools are received into the town high schools 
with the tuition paid by the rural school dis- 
tricts. The movement toward secondary educa- 
tion supplied by the rural community for its 
children is yet in its infancy, however, and has 
hardly touched the larger problem of affording 
adequate opportunities for the education of farm 
children. 

The grading and organization of the rural 
school is haphazard and faulty. This is partly 
because of the small enrollment and irregular 
attendance, and partly because of the inexperi- 
ence and lack of supervision of the teacher. 
Children are often found pursuing studies in 
three or four different grades at the same time. 
And even more often they omit altogether certain 
fundamental studies because they or their par- 
ents have a notion that these studies are un- 
necessary. Sometimes, owing to the small num- 
ber in attendance, or to the poor classification, 
several grades are entirely lacking, or else they 
are maintained for only one or two pupils. On 

20 



THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM 

the other hand, classes are often found following 
each other at an interval of only a few weeks, 
thereby multiplying classes until the teacher is 
frequently attempting the impossible task of 
teaching twenty-five or thirty classes a day. 
Children differing in age by five or six years, and 
possessing corresponding degrees of ability, are 
often found reciting in the same classes. That 
efficient work is impossible under these condi- 
tions is too obvious to require discussion. 

The rural schools possess inadequate build- 
ings and equipment. The average rural school- 
house consists of one room, with perhaps a small 
hallway. The building is constructed without 
reference to architectural effect, resembling no- 
thing so much as a large box with a roof on it. 
It is barren and uninviting as to its interior. The 
walls are often of lumber painted some dull 
color, and dingy through years of use. The win- 
dows are frequently dirty, and covered only by 
worn and tattered shades. There is usually no 
attempt to decorate the room with pictures, or 
to relieve its ugliness and monotony in any way. 
The library consists of a few dozens of volumes, 
not always supplied with a case for their protec- 
tion. Of apparatus there is almost none. The 
work of the farm is done with efficient modern 

21 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

equipment, the work of the farmer's school with 
inadequate and antiquated equipment. 

While the length of the school year is increas- 
ing in the rural districts, the term is yet much 
shorter than in town and city schools. Many com- 
munities have not more than six months of 
school, and few more than eight. This shortage 
is rendered all the more serious by the irregular 
attendance of the rural school children. A con- 
siderable amount of absence on the part of the 
younger ones is unavoidable under present con- 
ditions when the distance is great and the weather 
bad. After all allowance is made for this fact, 
however, there is still an immense amount of 
unnecessary waste of time through non-attend- 
ance. Many rural schools show an average at- 
tendance for the year of not more than sixty per 
cent of the enrollment. Going to school is not 
yet considered a serious business by many of the 
rural patrons, and truant officers are not so easily 
available in the country as in the city. 

In financial support the rural school has of ne- 
cessity been behind the city school. Wealth is not 
piled up on a small area in agricultural commu- 
nities as is the case in the city. It would often 
require square miles of land to equal in value 
certain city blocks. But making full allowance 

22 



THE RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM 

for this difference, the farmers have not sup- 
ported their schools as well as is done by the 
patrons of town and city schools. The school 
taxes for rural districts are much lower than in 
city districts, in most instances not more than 
half as high. It is this conservatism in expendi- 
ture that is responsible for many of the defects 
in the rural school, and particularly for the rela- 
tively inefficient teaching that is done. The rural 
teachers are the least educated, the least expe- 
rienced, and the most poorly paid of any class 
of our teachers. They consist almost wholly of 
girls, a large proportion of whom are under 
twenty years of age, and who continue teaching 
not more than a year or two. Not only is this 
the case, but effective supervision of the teach- 
ing is wholly impossible because of the large 
area assigned to the county or district superin- 
tendent of rural schools. In no great industrial 
project should we think of placing our youngest 
and most inexperienced workers in the hardest 
and most important positions, and this without 
supervision of their work. 

The rural school has not, therefore, yet been 
adjusted to its problem. It has a splendid field 
of work, but is not developing it. Our farming 
population have capacity for education and need 

23 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

it, but they are not securing it. There is plenty 
of money available for the support of the rural 
school, but the school is not getting it. Enough 
well-equipped teachers can be had for the rural 
schools, but the standards have not yet required 
adequate preparation, nor the pay been sufficient 
to warrant extensive expenditure for it. 

In the rural school is found the most im- 
portant and puzzling educational problem of the 
present day. If our agricultural population are 
not to fall behind other favored classes of indus- 
trial workers in intelligence and preparation for 
the activities that are to engage them, the rural 
school must begin working out a better adjust- 
ment to its problem. Its curriculum must be 
broader and richer, and more closely related to 
the life and interests of the farm. The organiza- 
tion of the school, both on the intellectual and 
the social side, must bring it more closely into 
touch with the interests and needs of the rural 
community. The support and administration of 
rural education must be improved. Teachers for 
the rural schools must be better educated and 
better paid, and their teaching must be corre- 
spondingly more efficient. The following pages 
will be given to a discussion of these problems 
of adjustment. 



II 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE RURAL 
SCHOOL 

Every school possesses two types of organiza- 
tion: (i) an intellectual organization involving 
the selection and arrangement of a curriculum, 
and its presentation through instruction ; and 
(2) a social organization involving, on the one 
hand, the inter-relations of the school and the 
community, and on the other the relations of 
the pupils with each other and the teacher. 

The rural school and the community 

The rural school and community are not at 
present in vital touch with each other. The com- 
munity is not getting enough from the school 
toward making life larger, happier, and more 
efficient ; it is not giving enough to the school 
either in helpful cooperation or financial sup- 
port. 

In general, it must be said that most of our 
rural people, the patrons of the rural school, have 
not yet conceived education broadly. They think 

25 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

of the school as having fulfilled its function when 
it has supplied the simplest rudiments of reading, 
writing, and number. And, naturally enough, the 
rural school has conceived its function in the 
same narrow light ; for it is controlled very com- 
pletely by its patrons, and a stream cannot rise 
higher than its source. 

Because of its isolation, the pressing insistence 
of its toil, and the monotony of its environment, 
the rural community is in constant danger of in- 
tellectual and social stagnation. It has far more 
need that its school shall be a stimulating, organ- 
izing, socializing force than has the town or city. 
For the city has a dozen social centres entirely 
outside the school : its public parks, theatres, 
clubs, churches, and streets, even, serve to stim- 
ulate, entertain, and educate. But the rural com- 
munity is wanting in all these social forces ; it is 
lacking in both intellectual and social stimulus 
and variety. 

One of the most pressing needs of country dis- 
tricts is a common neighborhood center for both 
young and old, which shall stand as an organiz- 
ing, welding, vitalizing force, uniting the com- 
munity on a basis of common interests and ac- 
tivities. For while, as we have seen, the rural 
population as a whole are markedly homogeneous, 
26 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

there is after all but little of common acquaint- 
anceship and mingling among them. Thousands 
of rural families live lives of almost complete so- 
cial isolation and lack of contact with neighbors. 

This condition is one of the gravest drawbacks 
to farm life. The social impulse and the natural 
desire for recreation and amusement are as strong 
in country boys and girls as in their city cousins, 
yet the country offers young people few oppor- 
tunities for satisfying these impulses and desires. 
The normal social tendencies of youth are alto- 
gether too strong to be crushed out by repres- 
sion ; they are too valuable to be neglected ; and 
they are too dangerous to be left to take their 
own course wholly unguided. The rural com- 
munity can never hope to hold its boys and girls 
permanently to the life of the farm until it has 
recognized the necessity for providing for the 
expression and development of the spontaneous 
social impulses of youth. 

Furthermore, the social monotony and lack of 
variety of the rural community is a grave moral 
danger to its young people. It is a common im- 
pression that the great city is strewn thick with 
snares and pitfalls threatening to morals, but that 
the country is free from such temptations. The 
public dance halls and cheap theaters of the city 
27 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

are beyond doubt a great and constant menace to 
youthful ideals and purity. But the country, go- 
ing to the opposite extreme, with its almost utter 
lack of recreation and amusement places, offers 
temptations no less insidious and fatal. 

The great difficulty at this point is that young 
people in rural communities are thrown together 
almost wholly in isolated pairs instead of in social 
groups ; and that there are no objective resources 
of amusement or entertainment to claim their in- 
terest and attention away from themselves. They 
are freed from all chaperonage and the restraints 
of the conventions obtaining in social groups at 
the very time in their lives when these are most 
needed as steadying and controlling forces. The 
result is that the country districts, which ought 
to be of all places in the world the freest from 
temptation and peril to the morals of our young 
people, are really more dangerous than the cities* 
The sequel is found in the fact that a larger pro- 
portion of country girls than of city girls go 
astray. Nor is the rural community more suc- 
cessful in the morals of its boys than its girls. 
In other words, the lack of opportunities for free 
and normal social experience, the consequent ig- 
norance of social conventions, and the absence of 
healthful amusement and recreation, make the 
28 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

rural community a most unsafe place in which 
to rear a family. 

But the necessity for social recreation and 
amusement does not apply to the young people 
alone. Their fathers and mothers are suffering 
from the same limitations, though of course with 
entirely different results. The danger here is 
that of premature aging and stagnation. While 
the toil of the city worker is relieved by change 
and variety, his mind rested and his mood enliv- 
ened by the stimulus from many lines of diver- 
sion, the lives of the dwellers on the farm are 
constantly threatened by a deadly sameness and 
monotony. 

The indisputable tendency of farmers and 
their wives to age so rapidly, and so early to fall 
into the ranks of " fogy ism," is due far more to 
lack of variety and recreation and to dearth of 
intellectual stimulus than to hard labor, severe 
as this often is. Age is more than the flight of 
the years, the stoop of the form, or the hardening 
of the arteries ; it is also the atrophy of the in- 
tellect and the fading away of the emotions re- 
sulting from disuse. The farmer needs occasion- 
ally to have something more exciting than the 
alternation of the day's work with the nightly 
"chores." And his wife should now and then 
29 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

have an opportunity to meet people other than 
those for whom she cooks and sews. 

But what has all this to do with the social 
organization of the rural school ? Much. The 
country cannot have its theaters, parks, and 
crowded thoroughfares like the city. But it needs 
and must have some social center, where its peo- 
ple may assemble for recreation, entertainment, 
and intellectual growth and development. And 
what is more natural and feasible than that the 
public school should be this center.? Here is an 
institution already belonging to the whole peo- 
ple, and set apart for the intellectual training of 
the young. Why should it not also be made to 
minister to the intellectual needs of their elders 
as well, and to the social needs of all } Why 
should not the public school buildings now in use 
but six hours a day for little more than half the 
yeary be open at all times when it can be helpful 
to any portion of the community f 

If young people are to develop naturally, if 
they are to make full use of their social as well 
as their intellectual powers, if they are to be 
satisfied with their surroundings, they must be 
provided with suitable opportunities for social 
mingling and recreation in groups. This is na- 
ture's way ; there is no other way. The school 

30 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

might and should afford this opportunity. There 
is not the least reason why the school building, 
when it is adapted to this purpose, should not 
be the common neighborhood meeting place for 
all sorts of young people's parties, picnics, enter- 
tainments, athletic contests, and every other 
form of amusement approved in the community. 

Such a use of the school property would yield 
large returns to the community for the small 
additional expense required. It would serve to 
weld the school and community more closely 
together. It would vastly change the attitude of 
the young toward the school. It would save 
much of the dissatisfaction of young people with 
the life of the farm. It would prove a great safe- 
guard to youthful morals. It would lead the 
community itself to a new sense of its duty to- 
ward the social life of the young, and to a new 
concept of the school as a part of the community 
organization. Finally, this broadened service of 
the school to its community would have a reflex 
influence on the school itself, vitalizing every 
department of its activities, and giving it a new- 
vision of its opportunities. 

The first obstacle that will appear in the way 
of such a plan is the inadequacy of the present 
type of country schoolhouse. And this is a seri- 

31 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

ous matter ; for the barren, squalid little build- 
ing of the present day would never fit into such 
a project. But this type of schoolhouse must go 
— is going. It is a hundred years behind our civ- 
ilization, and wholly inadequate to present needs. 
Passing for later discussion the method by 
which these buildings are to be supplanted by 
better ones, let us consider further the details of 
the plan of making the school the neighborhood 
center. 

First of all, each school must supply a larger 
area and a greater number of people than at 
present. It is financially impossible to erect good 
buildings to the number of our present schools. 
Nor are there pupils enough in the small district 
as now organized to make a school, nor people 
enough successfully to use the school as a neigh- 
borhood center. 

Let each township, or perhaps somewhat 
smaller area, select a central, well-adapted site 
and thereon erect a modern, well-equipped school 
building. But this building must not be just the 
traditional schoolhouse with its classrooms and 
rows of desks. For it is to be more than a place 
where the children will study and recite lessons 
from books ; it is to be the place where all the 
people of the neighborhood, old and youngs will 

32 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

assemble for entertainment, amusement, and in- 
struction. Here will be held community picnics, 
social entertainments, young people's parties, lec- 
tures, concerts, debating contests, agricultural 
courses for the farmers, school programs, spreads 
and banquets, and whatever else may belong to 
the common social and intellectual life of the 
community. 

The modern rural school building will there- 
fore be home-like as v/ell as school-like. In ad- 
dition to its classrooms it will contain an assem- 
bly room capable of seating several hundred 
people. The seating of this room may be remov- 
able so that the floor can be cleared for social 
purposes or the room used for a dining-room. 
One or two smaller rooms will be needed for 
social functions, club and committee meetings. 
These rooms should be made attractive with 
good furniture, rugs, couches, and pictures. The 
building will contain well-equipped laboratories 
for manual training and domestic science, the 
latter of which will be found serviceable in con- 
nection with serving picnics, "spreads," and the 
like. The entire building should be architectur- 
ally attractive, well heated and ventilated, com- 
modious, well furnished, and decorated with good 
pictures. In it should be housed a library con- 

33 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

taining several thousand well-selected books, 
besides magazines and newspapers. The labora- 
tories and equipment should be fully equal to 
those found in the town schools, but should be 
adapted to the work of the rural school. 

The grounds surrounding the rural school 
building can easily be ample in area, and beauti- 
ful in outlook and decoration. Here will be the 
neighborhood athletic grounds for both boys and 
girls, shade trees for picnics, flowers and shrubs, 
and ground enough for a school garden connected 
with the instruction in agriculture. Nor is it too 
much to believe that the district will in the future 
erect on the school grounds a cottage for the 
principal of the school and his family, and thus 
offer an additional inducement for strong, able 
men to devote their energies to education in the 
rural communities. 

Now contrast this schoolhouse and equipment 
with the typical rural building of the present. 
Adjoining a prosperous farm, with its large 
house, its accompanying barns, silos, machine 
houses, and all the equipment necessary to mod- 
ern farming, is the little schoolhouse. It is a 
dilapidated shell of a rectangular box, barren of 
every vestige of beauty or attractiveness both in- 
side and out. At the rear are two outbuildings 

34 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZz\TION 

which are an offense to decency and a menace 
to morals. Within the schoolhouse the painted 
walls are dingy with smoke and grime. The win- 
dows are broken and dirty, no pictures adorn the 
walls. The floor is washed but once or twice a 
year. The room is heated by an ugly box of a 
stove, and ventilated only by means of windows 
which frequently are nailed shut. The grounds 
present a wilderness of weeds, rubbish, and piles 
of ashes. It is all an outrage against the rights 
of the country child, and an indictment of the 
intelligence and ideals of a large proportion of 
our people. 

If it is said that the plan proposed to remedy 
this situation is revolutionary, it will be admitted. 
What our rural schools of to-day need is not im- 
provement but reorganization. For only in this 
radical way can they be made a factor in the 
vitalizing and conserving of the rural community 
which, unless some new leaven is introduced, is 
surely destined to disorganization and decay. 

The consolidation of rural schools 

The first step in reorganizing the rural schools 
is consolidation. Our rural school organization, 
buildings, and equipment are a full century be- 
hind our industrial and social advancement. The 

35 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

present plan of attempting to run a school on 
approximately every four square miles of terri- 
tory originated at a time of poverty, and when the 
manufacturing industries were all carried on in 
the homes and small shops. Our rural people are 
now well-to-do, and manufacturing has moved 
over into a well-organized set of factories ; but 
the isolated little school, shamefully housed, 
meagerly equipped, poorly attended, and unskill- 
fully taught, still remains. 

Such a system of schools leaves our rural peo- 
ple educationally on a par with the days of cra- 
dling the grain and threshing it with a flail ; of 
planting corn by hand and cultivating it with a 
hoe ; of lighting the house with a tallow dip, and 
traveling by stage-coach. 

The well-meant attempts to " improve *' the ru- 
ral school as now organized are futile. The pro- 
posal to solve the problem by raising the stand- 
ards for teachers, desirable as this is; by the 
raising of salaries ; or by bettering the type of 
the little schoolhouse, are at best but tempor- 
ary makeshifts, and do not touch the root of the 
problem. The first and most fundamental step is 
to eliminate the little shacks of houses that dot 
our prairies every two miles along the country 
roads. 

36 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

For not only is it impossible to supply ade- 
quate buildings so near together, but it is even 
more impossible to find children enough to con- 
stitute a real school in such small districts. 
There is no way of securing a full head of inter- 
est and enthusiasm with from five to ten or 
twelve pupils in a school The classes are too 
small and the number of children too limited to 
permit the organization of proper games and 
plays, or a reasonable variety of association 
through mingling together. 

Furthermore, it will never be possible to pay 
adequate salaries to the teachers in these small 
schools. Nor will any ambitious and well-prepared 
teacher be willing to remain in such a position, 
where he is obliged to invest his time and influ- 
ence with so few pupils, and where all conditions 
are so adverse. 

The chief barrier to the centralization of rural 
education has been local prejudice and pride. In 
many cases a true sentimental value has attached 
to "the little red schoolhouse." Its praises have 
been sung, and orator and writer have expanded 
upon the glories of our common schools, until it 
is no wonder that their pitiful inadequacy has 
been overlooked by many of their patrons. 

In other cases opposition has arisen to giving 

37 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

up the small local school because of the selfish 
fear that the loss of the school would lower the 
value of adjacent property. Still others have 
feared that consolidation would mean higher 
school taxes, and have opposed it upon this 
ground. 

But whatever the causes of the opposition to 
consohdation, this opposition must cease before 
the rural school can fulfill its function and before 
the rural child can have educational opportuni- 
ties even approximating those given the town 
child. And until this is accomplished, the exodus 
from the farm will continue and ought to con- 
tinue. Pride, prejudice, and penury must not be 
allowed to deprive the farm boys and girls of 
their right to education and normal development. 

The movement toward consolidation of rural 
schools and transportation of the children to a 
central school has already attained considerable 
headway in many regions of the country.^ It is 
now a part of the rural school system in thirty- 
two States. Massachusetts, the leader in consoli- 
dation, began in 1869. The movement at first 
grew slowly in all the States, not only having lo- 
cal opposition to overcome, but also meeting the 

1 See "Consolidated Rural Schools," Bulletin 232, U. S. 
Department of Agriculture. 

38 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

problem of bad country roads interfering with the 
transportation of pupils. 

During the past half-dozen years, however, 
consolidation has been gaining headway, and is 
now going on at least five times as fast as the 
average for the twenty-five years preceding 1906. 
Indiana is at present the banner State in the 
rapidity of consolidation, the expenditure for con- 
veyance having considerably more than trebled 
since 1904. The broad and general sweep of the 
movement, together with the fact that it is prac- 
tically unheard of for schools that have once 
tried consolidation to go back to the old system, 
seems to indicate that the rural education of the 
not distant future will, except in a few regions, 
be carried on in consolidated schools. 

The relative cost of maintaining district and 
consolidated schools is an important factor. Yet 
this factor must not be given undue prominence. 
It is true that the cost of education must be kept 
at a reasonable ratio with the standard of living 
of a community. But it is also true that the 
consolidated rural school must be looked upon 
as an indispensable country-life institution, and 
hence as having claim to a more generous basis 
of support than that accorded the district school. 

While it is impossible, owing to such widely 

39 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

varying conditions, to make an absolutely exact 
statement of the relative expense of the two types 
of schools, yet it has been shown in many differ- 
ent instances that the cost of schooling per day 
in consolidated schools is but slightly, if any, 
above that in most district schools. 

The aggregate annual cost is usually some- 
what higher in the consolidated schools, owing to 
the fact of a greatly increased attendance. A 
comparison made between the cost per day's 
schooHng in the smaller district schools and con- 
solidated schools almost invariably shows a lower 
expenditure for the latter. For example, the fifteen 
districts in Hardin County, Iowa, having in 1908 
an enrollment of nine or less, averaged a cost of 
27. 5 cents a day for each pupil.^ At the same 
time the cost per day in the consolidated rural 
schools of northeastern Ohio was only 17.4 cents 
a day, the district schools being more than fifty- 
seven percent higher than the consolidated. Simi- 
lar comparisons show the same trend in many 
other localities. In a great many of the small dis- 
trict schools the cost per pupil is as high as in 
consolidated schools where a high school course 
is also provided. It has been found that the aver- 
age cost per year of schooHng a child in a con- 

^ 1 Bulletin 232, U. S. Department of Agriculture, p. 38. 
40 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

solidated school is but little above thirty dollars, 
while in practically all smaller district schools it 
far exceeds this amount, not infrequently going 
above fifty dollars. This means that average rural 
districts that are putting at least thirty dollars a 
year into the schooling of each child can, by con- 
solidating their schools, secure greatly improved 
educational facilities with no heavier financial 
burden. 

Not the least important of the advantages 
growing out of rural school consolidation is the 
improved attendance. Experience has shown 
that fully twenty-five per cent more children of 
school age are enrolled under the consolidated 
than under the district system. The advantage 
of this one factor alone can hardly be overesti- 
mated, but the increase in regularity of attend- 
ance is also as great. The average daily attendance 
of rural schools throughout the country is ap- 
proximately sixty per cent of the enrollment, and 
in entire States falls below fifty per cent. It has 
been found that consolidation, with its attendant 
conveyance of pupils, commonly increases the 
average daily attendance by as much as twenty- 
five per cent. 

It is true that in many regions it may at pre- 
sent prove impossible to consolidate all the rural 

4f 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

schools. In places where the population is so 
sparse as to require transportation for very long 
distances, or where the country roads are still in 
such a condition in wet seasons as to be prac- 
tically impassable, consolidation must of neces- 
sity be delayed. In such communities, however, 
the rural school need not be completely at a 
standstill. Much can be done to make even the 
one-room schoolhouse attractive and hygienic. 
With almost no expense, the grounds can be set 
with shade trees, shrubs, and perennial flowering 
plants. The yard can be made into a lawn in 
front, and into an athletic ground at the sides or 
the rear. Enough ground can be added to pro- 
vide for all these things, and a school garden 
besides. The building can be rendered more 
inviting through better architecture, and more 
attention to decoration and cleanliness. An ade- 
quate supply of books and other equipment can 
be provided. While the isolated rural school can 
never take the place of the consolidated school, 
while it should always be looked upon as only 
temporarily occupying a place later to be filled 
by a more efficient type of school, it can after all 
be rendered much more efficient that it is at pre- 
sent. And since the one-room school will with- 
out doubt for years to come be required as a 
42 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

supplement of the consolidated school, it should 
receive the same careful thought and effort t • 
ward its improvement that is being accorded thv . 
school of better type. 

Financial support of the rural school 

The rural school has never had adequate finan- 
cial support. There has been good reason for 
this in many regions of the country where farm 
property was low in value, the land sparsely set- 
tled and not all improved, or else covered by 
heavy mortgages. As these conditions have gradu- 
ally disappeared and the agricultural population 
become more prosperous, the school has in some 
degree shared the general prosperity. But not 
fully. A smaller proportion of the margin of 
wealth above living necessities is going into rural 
education now than in the earlier days of less 
prosperity. While the farmer has vastly "im- 
proved" his farm, he has improved his school 
but little. While he has been adding modern 
machinery and adopting scientific methods in 
caring for his grain and stock, his children have 
not had the advantage of an increasingly efficient 
school. 

The poverty of the rural school finds its ex- 
planation in two facts : (i) the relatively low value 

43 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

of the taxable property of the rural as compared 
with the town or city district, and (2) the lower 
rate of local school tax paid in country than in 
urban districts. The first of these disadvantages 
of the rural district cannot be remedied ; but for 
the second, there seems to be no valid economic 
reason. 

The approximate difference in the local school- 
tax rate paid in urban and rural districts is shown 
in the following instances, which might be dupli- 
cated from other States : — 

In Kansas, the local school tax paid in igioby 
towns and cities was above eighty per cent more 
than that paid by country districts. In Missouri, 
the current report of the State Superintendent 
shows towns and cities seventy-five per cent 
higher than the country. In Minnesota, towns 
and cities average nearly three times the rate 
paid by rural districts. In Ohio, towns and cities 
are more than ten per cent higher than rural 
districts, even where the rural district maintains 
a full elementary and high school course. In 
Nebraska and Iowa, the town and city rate is 
about double that of country districts. 

When there is added to this difference the 
further fact that town and city property is com- 
monly assessed at more nearly its full value than 

44 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

rural property, the discrepancy becomes all the 
greater. 

It is not meant, of course, that farmers should 
pay as high a school-tax rate for the elementary 
rural school as that paid by town patrons who 
also have a high school available. But, on the 
other hand, if better school facilities are to be 
furnished the country children, rural property 
should bear its full share of the taxes required. 
The farmer should be willing to pay as much for 
the education of his child as the city dweller 
pays for a similar education for his. 

During the last generation farmers have been 
increasing in wealth faster than any other class 
of industrial workers. Their land has doubled in 
value, barns have been built, machinery has been 
added, automobiles purchased, and large bank 
credits estabUshed. Yet very little of this in- 
creased prosperity has reached the school. Li- 
brary, reference works, maps, charts, and other 
apparatus are usually lacking. In Iowa, as a fair 
example, a sum of not less than ten nor more 
than fifteen cents a year for each pupil of school 
age in the district is required by law to be ex- 
pended for library books. Yet in not a few dis- 
tricts the law is a dead letter or the money grudg- 
ingly spent ! In many rural schools the teacher 

45 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

has to depend on the proceeds of a " social/* an 
"exhibition," or a "box party" to secure a few 
dollars for books or pictures for the neighborhood 
schools and sometimes even buys brooms and 
dust pans from the fund secured in this way. 

This is all wrong. The school should be put 
on a business basis. It should have the necessary 
tools with which to accomplish its work, and not 
be forced to waste the time and opportunity of 
childhood for want of a few dollars expended for 
equipment. Its patrons should realize that just as 
it pays to supply factory, shop, or farm with the 
best of instruments for carrying on the work, so 
it pays in the school. Cheap economy is always 
wasteful, and never more wasteful than when it 
cripples the efficiency of education. 

State aid for rural schools has been proposed 
and in some instances tried, as a mode of solving 
their financial problem. Where this system has 
been given a fair trial, as for example in Minne- 
sota, it has resulted in two great advantages : 
(i) it has encouraged the local community to freer 
expenditure of their own money for school pur- 
poses, since the contribution of the State is con- 
ditioned on the amount expended by the district. 
This is an important achievement, since it serves 
to train the community to the idea of more liberal 

46 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

local taxation for school purposes, and it is prob- 
able that the greater part of the support of our 
schools will continue to come from this source. 
Another advantage of state aid is (2) that it serves 
to equalize educational opportunities, and hence to 
maintain a true educational democracy. Wealthier 
localities are caused to contribute to the educa- 
tional facilities of those less favored, and a com- 
mon advancement thereby secured. 

While the theory of state aid to rural educa- 
tion is wholly defensible, and while it has worked 
well in practice, yet there is one safeguard that 
needs to be considered. It is manifestly unfair 
to ask the people of towns and cities to help pay 
for the support of the rural schools through the 
medium of the State treasury except on condi- 
tion that the patrons of the rural schools them- 
selves do their fair share. Mr. "A," living in 
a town where he pays twenty mills school tax, 
ought not to be asked to help improve Mr. 
*'B's" rural school, while Mr. "B" is himself 
paying but ten mills of school tax. The farmer 
is as able as any one else to pay a fair rate of 
taxation for his school, and should be willing to 
do so before asking for aid from other taxation 
sources. Rural education must not be placed on 
the basis of a missionary enterprise. State aid 

47 



NEW roEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

should be used to compensate for the difference 
in the economic basis for taxation in different lo- 
cahties, and not for a difference in the rates of 
taxation between locaUties equally able to pay 
the same rate. 

We may conclude, then, that while neither 
the rural school nor the community has been 
fully aware of the possibilities for mutual help- 
fulness and cooperation, yet there are many hope- 
ful signs that both are awakening to a sense of 
responsibility. Federal and state commissions 
have been created to study the rural problem, 
national and state teachers' associations are 
seeking a solution of the rural school question, 
and, better still, the patrons of the rural schools 
are in many places alive to the pressing need for 
better educational facilities for their children. 

Growing out of these influences and the faith- 
ful work of many state and county superintend- 
ents, and not a few of the rural teachers them- 
selves, a spirit of progress is gaining headway. 
Several thousand consolidated schools are now 
rendering excellent service to their patrons and 
at the same time acting as a stimulus to other 
communities to follow their example. State aid 
to rural education is no longer an experiment. 
48 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

The people are in many localities voluntarily and 
gladly increasing their taxes in order that they 
may improve their schools. Teachers' salaries 
are being increased, better equipment provided, 
and buildings rendered more habitable. 

The great educational problem of the immedi- 
ate future will be to encourage and guide the 
movement which is now getting under way. For 
mistakes made now will handicap both commun- 
ity and school for years to come. The attempt 
to secure better schools by " improving " condi- 
tions in local districts should be definitely aban- 
doned except in localities where conditions make 
consolidation impracticable for the present. The 
new consolidated school building should take de- 
finitely into account the fact that the school is 
to become the neighborhood social center^ and the 
structure should be planned as much with this 
function in view as with its uses for school pur- 
poses. The new type of rural school is not to aim 
simply to give a better intellectual training, but 
is at the same time to relate this training to the 
conditions and needs of our agricultural popula- 
tion. And all who have to do with the rural 
schools in any way are to seek to make the 
school a true vitalizing factor in the community 
— a leaven, whose influence shall permeate every 

49 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

line of interest and activity of its patrons and 
lead to a fuller and richer life. 

The rural school and its pupils 

One of the surest tests of any school is the 
attitude of the pupils — the spirit of loyalty, 
cooperation, and devotion they manifest with 
reference to their education. Do they, on the 
whole, look upon the school as an opportunity or 
an imposition } Do they consider it their school, 
and make its interests and welfare their concern, 
or do they think of it as the teacher's school, or 
the board's school or the district's school } These 
questions are of supreme importance, for the ques- 
tion of attitude, quite as much as that of ability, 
determines the use made of opportunity. 

It must be admitted that throughout our en- 
tire school system there remains something to 
be desired in the spirit of cooperation between 
pupils and schools. The feeling of loyalty which 
the child has for his home does not extend com- 
mensurately to the school. Too often the school 
is looked upon as something forced upon the 
child, for his welfare, perhaps, but after all not 
as forming an interesting and vital part of his 
present experience. It is often rather a place 
where so much time and effort and inconven- 

50 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

ience must be paid for so many grades and pro^ 
motions, and where, incidentally, preparation is 
supposed to be made for some future demands 
very dimly conceived. At best, there is fre- 
quently a lack of feeling of full identity of in- 
terests between the child and the school. 

The youth, immaturity, and blindness of child- 
hood make it impossible, of course, for children 
to conceive of their school in a spirit of full appre- 
ciation. On the other hand, the very nature of 
childhood is responsiveness and readiness of co- 
operation in any form of interesting activity, — 
is loyalty of attitude toward what is felt to 
minister to personal happiness and well-being. 
In so far, therefore, as there exists any lack of 
loyalty and cooperation of pupils toward their 
school, the reasons for such defection are to be 
sought first of all in the school, and not in the 
child. 

While this negative attitude of the pupils ex- 
ists in some degree in all our schools, it is 
undoubtedly more marked in our rural schools 
than in others. In a negligible number of cases 
does this lack of cooperation take the form of 
overt rebellion against the authority of the school. 
It is manifested in other ways, many of them 
wholly unconscious to the child, as, for example, 

51 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

lack of desire to attend school, and indifference 
to its activities when present. 

Attending school is the most important occu- 
pation that can engage the child. Yet the indif- 
ference of children and their parents alike to the 
necessity for schooling makes the small and ir- 
regular attendance of rural school pupils one of 
the most serious problems with which educators 
have to deal. County superintendents have in 
many places offered prizes and diplomas with 
the hope of bettering attendance, but such in- 
centives do not reach the source of the difficulty. 
The remedy must finally lie in a fundamental 
change of attitude toward the school and its op- 
portunities. Good attendance must spring from 
interest in the school work and a feeling of its 
value, rather than from any artificial incentives. 

How great a problem poor attendance at rural 
schools is, may be realized from the fact that, 
in spite of compulsory education laws, not more 
than seventy per cent of the children accessible 
to the rural school are enrolled, and of this num- 
ber only about sixty per cent are in daily attend- 
ance. This is to say that under one half of our 
farm children are daily receiving the advantages 
of even the rural school. In some States this 
proportion will fall as low as three tenths instead 

52 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

of one half. In many rich agricultural counties 
of the Middle West, having a farming popula- 
tion of approximately ten thousand, not more 
than forty or fifty pupils per year complete the 
eight grades of the rural school. 

If the rural school is to be able to claim the 
regular attendance and spontaneous cooperation 
of the children it must (i) be reasonably acces- 
sible to them, (2) be attractive and interesting 
in itself, and (3) offer work the value and applica- 
tion of which are evident. 

The inaccessibility of the rural school has 
always been one of its greatest disadvantages. 
In a large proportion of cases, a walk of from a 
mile to a mile and a half along country roads or 
across cultivated fields has been required to reach 
the schoolhouse. During inclement weather, or 
when deep snow covers the ground, this distance 
proves almost prohibitive for all the smaller child- 
ren. Wet feet and drenched clothing have been 
followed by severe colds, coughs, bronchitis, or 
worse, and the children have not only suffered 
educationally, but been endangered physically as 
well. 

It has been found in all instances that public 
conveyance of pupils to the consolidated schools 
greatly increases rural school patronage. It makes 

53 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

the school accessible. The regular wagon service 
does away with the ** hit-and-miss " method of de- 
termining for each succeeding day whether it is 
advisable for the child to start for school. So 
important is this factor in securing attendance, 
that a careful study by Knorr ^ of the attendance 
in Ohio district and consolidated schools shows 
twenty-seven per cent more of the total school 
population in school under the influence of public 
conveyance and other features peculiar to con- 
solidation than under the district system. He 
concludes that, broadly speaking, by a system 
of consolidated schools with public conveyance, 
rural school attendance can be increased by at 
least one fourth. 

The life in the typical rural school is not suf- 
ficiently interesting and attractive to secure a 
strong hold upon the pupils. The dreary ugliness 
of the physical surroundings has already been 
referred to. And even in districts where the 
building and grounds have been made reason- 
ably attractive, there is yet wanting a powerful 
factor — the influence of the social incentive that 
comes from numbers. In hundreds of our rural 
schools the daily attendance is less than a dozen 
pupils, frequently not representing more than 

1 Bulletin 232, U. S. Department of Agriculture, p. 51. 

54 



THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

three or four families. The classes can therefore 
contain not more than two or three pupils, and 
often only one. There is no possibility of organ- 
izing games, or having the fun and frolic possible 
to larger groups of children. Add to this the fact 
that the teaching is often spiritless and uninspir- 
ing, and the reason becomes still more plain why 
so many rural children drop out of school with 
scarcely the rudiments of an education. 

Here, again, the consoHdated school, with its 
attractive building, its improved equipment, its 
larger body of pupils, and its better teaching, 
appears as a solution of the difficulty. For it does 
what the present type of district school can 
never do — it makes school life interesting and 
attractive to its pupils, and this brings to bear 
upon them one of the strongest incentives to 
continue in school and secure an education. 

Finally, much of the work of the school has 
not appealed to the pupils as interesting or valu- 
able. This has not been altogether the fault of 
the curriculum, but often has come from the lack 
of adaptability of the work to the pupils study- 
ing it. Through frequent changes of teachers, 
poor classification, and irregularity of attendance, 
rural pupils have often been forced to go over 
and over the same ground, without any reference 

55 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

to whether they were ready to advance or not. 
In other cases, careless grading has placed child- 
ren in studies for which they were utterly unpre- 
pared, and from which they could get nothing but 
discouragement and dislike for school. In still 
other instances the course pursued has been ill- 
balanced, and in no degree correlated. Often the 
whim of the child determines whether he will or 
will not study certain subjects, the teacher lack- 
ing either the knowledge or insistence to bring 
about a better organization of the work. 

The unskilled character of the rural school- 
teaching force, and the impossibility of securing 
any reasonable supervision as the system is at 
present organized, make us again turn to the con- 
solidated school as the remedy for these adverse 
conditions. For with its improved attendance, its 
skilled teaching, and its better supervision, it 
easily and naturally renders such conditions im- 
possible. Give the consolidated school, in addi- 
tion, the greatly enriched curriculum which it will 
find possible to offer its pupils, and the vexing 
question of the relation of the rural school to its 
pupils will be far toward solution. 

Let us next consider somewhat in detail the 
curriculum of the rural school. 



Ill 

THE CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

If we grant the economic ability to support good 
schools, then the curriculum offered by any type 
of school, the scope of subject-matter given the 
pupils to master, is a measure of the educational 
ideals of those maintaining and using the schools. 
If the curriculum is broad, and representative of 
the various great fields of human culture ; if it 
relates itself to the life and needs of its patrons ; 
if it is adapted to the interests and activities of its 
pupils, it may be said that the people beheve in 
education as a right of the individual and as a 
preparation for successful living. But if, on the 
other hand, the curriculum is meager and narrow, 
consisting only of the rudiments of knowledge, 
and not related to the life of the people or the 
interests of the pupils, then it may well be con- 
cluded that education is not highly prized, that 
it is not understood, or that it is looked upon as 
an incidental. 

The scope of the rural school curriculum 
Modern conditions require a broader and more 
57 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

thorough education than that demanded by former 
times, and far more than the typical district rural 
school affords. The old-time school offered only 
the "three R's," and this was thought sufficient 
for an education. But these times have passed. 
Not only has society greatly increased in wealth 
during the last half-century, but it has also grown 
much in intelligence. Many more people are be- 
ing educated now than formerly, and they are 
also being vastly better educated. For the con- 
cept of what constitutes an education has changed, 
and the curriculum has grown correspondingly 
broader and richer. 

It is therefore no longer possible to express 
the educational status of a community in the per- 
centage of people who can merely read and write. 
Educational progress has become a national ideal. 
The elementary schools in towns and cities have 
been greatly strengthened both in curriculum and 
teaching. High schools have been organized and 
splendidly equipped, and their attendance has 
rapidly increased. 

But all this development has hardly touched 
the rural school. The curriculum offered is piti- 
fully narrow even for an elementary school, and 
very few high schools are supported by rural com- 
munities. In fact, a large proportion of our rural 

58 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

population are receiving an education but little 
in advance of that offered a hundred years 
ago in similar schools. This is not fair to the 
children born and reared on the farm ; it is not 
fair to one of the greatest and most important 
industries of our country; and it cannot but result 
disastrously in the end. 

If the rural school is to meet its problem, it 
must extend the scope of its curriculum. It was 
formerly thought by many that education, except 
in its sim.plest elements, was only for those plan- 
ning to enter the " learned professions." But this 
idea has given way before the onward sweep of 
the spirit of democracy, and we now conceive 
education as the right and duty of all. Nor by 
education do we mean the simple ability to read, 
write, and number. 

Our present-day civilization demands not only 
that the child shall be taught to read, but also 
that he shall be supplied with books and guided 
in his reading. Through reading as a tool he is 
to become familiar with the best in the world's 
literature and its history. He is not only to learn 
number, but is to be so educated that he may 
employ his number concepts in fruitful ways. 
He must not only be familiar with the mechanics 
of writing, but must have knowledge, interests, 

59 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

experience that will give him something to write 
about. The "three R's " are necessary tools, but 
they are only tools, and must be utilized in put- 
ting the child into possession of the best and 
most fruitful culture of the race. And, practi- 
cally, they must put him into command of such 
phases of culture as touch his own life and ex- 
perience and make him more efficient. 

The rural school cannot extend the scope of 
its curriculum simply by inserting in the present 
curriculum new studies related to the life and 
work of the farm. The modification must be 
deeper and more thoroughgoing than this. A full 
elementary course of eight years and a high school 
course of four years should be easily accessible to 
every rural child. Less than this amount of edu- 
cation is inadequate to prepare for the life of the 
farm, and fails to put the individual into full pos- 
session of his powers. Nor, in most instances, 
should the high schooling be left to some adja- 
cent town, which is to receive the rural pupils 
upon payment of tuition to the town district. 
Unless the town is small, and practically a part 
of the rural community, it cannot supply, either 
in the subject-matter of the curriculum or the 
spirit of the school, the type of education that 
the rural children should have. For in so far as 
60 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

the town or city high school leads to any specific 
vocation, it certainly does not lead toward in- 
dustrial occupations, and least of all toward agri- 
culture. It rather prepares for the professions, 
or for business careers. Its tendency is very 
strongly to draw the boys and girls away from 
the farm instead of preparing them for it. 

While the rural child, therefore, must be pro- 
vided with a better and broader education, he 
should usually not be sent to town to get it. If 
he is, the chances are that he will stay in town 
and be lost to the farm. Indeed, this is precisely 
what has been happening ; the town or city high 
school has been turning the country boy away 
from the farm. For not only does what one stud- 
ies supply his knowledge ; it also determines his 
attitude. 

If the curriculum contains no subject-matter 
related to the immediate experience and occupa- 
tion of the pupil, his education is certain to en- 
tice him away from his old interests and activi- 
ties. The farm boy whose studies lack all point 
of contact with his life and work will soon either 
lose interest in the curriculum or turn his back 
upon the farm. If the boys and girls born on the 
farm are to be retained in this form of industry, 
the rural school must be broadened to give them 
6i 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

an education equal to that afforded by town or 
city for its youth. If the rural community can- 
not accomplish this end, it has no claim on the 
loyalty and service of its youth. Rural children 
have a right to a well-organized, well-equipped, 
and well-taught elementary school of eight years 
and a high school of four years, with a curriculum 
adapted especially to their interests and needs. 

It is not meant, of course, that the rural school, 
with its present organization and administration, 
can extend the scope of its curriculum to make 
it the equal of that offered in the grades of the 
town or city school. Radical changes, such as 
those discussed in the preceding chapter, will 
have to be made in the rural district system be- 
fore this is possible. That these changes are being 
made and the full elementary and high school 
course offered in many consolidated rural schools, 
scattered from Florida to Idaho, is proof both of 
the feasibility of the plan and of an awakened 
public demand for better rural education. 

The broadened curriculum of the rural school 
must contain subject-matter especially related to 
the interests and activities of the farm ; upon this 
all are agreed. But it must not stop with voca- 
tional subjects alone. For, while one's vocation 
is fundamental, it is not all of life. Education 
62 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

should help directly in making a living ; it must 
also help to live. Broad and permanent lines of 
interest must be set up and trained to include 
many forms of experience. The child must come 
to know something of the great social institu- 
tions of his day and of the history leading to their 
development. He must become familiar with the 
marvelous scientific discoveries and inventions 
underlying our modern civilization. He must be 
led to feel appreciation for the beautiful in art, 
literature, and music ; and must have nurtured in 
his life a love for goodness and truth in every 
form. In short, through the curriculum the latent 
powers constituting the life capital of every nor- 
mal child are to be stimulated and developed to 
the end that his life shall be more than mere 
physical existence — to the end that it shall be 
crowned with fullness of knowledge, richness of 
feeling, and the victory of worthy achievement. 
This is the right of every child in these prosper- 
ous and enlightened times, — the right of the 
country child as well as the city child. And so- 
ciety will not have done its duty in providing for 
the education of its youth until the children of 
the farm have full opportunities for such devel- 
opment. 



63 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

The rural elementary school curriculum 

By the elementary school is meant the eight 
grades of work below the high school which the 
rural school is now meant to cover. 

Whatever is put into the curriculum of a na- 
tion's schools finally becomes a part of national 
character and achievement. What the children 
study in school comes to determine their atti- 
tudes and shape their aptitudes. The old Greek 
philosophers, becoming teachers of youth, turned 
the nation into a set of students and disputants 
over philosophical questions. Sparta taught her 
boys the arts of war, and became the chief mili- 
tary nation of her time. Germany introduces 
technological studies into her schools, and be- 
comes the leading country in the world in the 
arts of manufacture. Let any people emphasize 
in their schools the studies that lead to commer- 
cial and professional interests, and neglect those 
that prepare for industrial vocations, and the in- 
dustrial welfare of the nation is sure to suffer. 

The curriculum of the rural school must, there- 
fore, contain the basic subjects that belong to all 
culture, — the studies that every normal, intelli- 
gent person should have just because he belongs 
to the twentieth-century civilization, and in addi- 

64 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

tion must include the subjects that afford the 
knowledge and develop the attitude and technique 
belonging to the life of the farm. Let us now con- 
sider this curriculum somewhat more in detail. 

The mother tongue. Mastery of his mother 
tongue is the birthright of every child. He should 
first of all be able to speak it correctly and with 
ease. He should next be able to read it with com- 
prehension and enjoyment, and should become 
familiar with the best in its literature. He should 
be able to write it with facility, both as to its 
spelling and its composition. Finally, he should 
know something of the structure, or grammar, of 
the language. 

This requirement suggests the content of the 
curriculum as to English, The child must be 
given opportunity to use the language orally; 
he must be led to talk. But this implies that he 
must have something to say, and be interested in 
saying it. Formal " language lessons," divorced 
from all the child's interests and activities, will 
not meet the purpose. Facility in speech grows 
out of enthusiasm in speaking. Every recitation 
is a lesson in English, and should be used for this 
purpose ; nor should the aim be correctness only, 
but ease and fluency as well. 

The child must also learn to read ; not alone 

65 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

to pronounce the printed words of a page, but to 
grasp the thought and feeling, and express them 
in oral reading. This presupposes a mastery of 
the mechanics of reading, the letters, words, and 
marks employed. The only way to learn to read 
is by reading. This is true whether we refer to 
learning the mechanics of reading, to learning 
the apprehension and expression of thought, or 
to learning the art of appreciating and enjoying 
good literature. 

Yet, trite and self-evident as this truism is, it 
is constantly violated in teaching reading in the 
rural school. For the course in reading usually 
consists of a series of five readers, expected to 
cover seven or eight years of study. These read- 
ers contain less than one hundred pages of read- 
ing matter to the year, or but little more than 
half a page a day for the time the child should 
be in school. The result is that the same reader 
is read over and over, to no purpose. With a rich 
literature available for each of the eight years of 
the elementary school, comparatively few of the 
rural schools have supplied either supplementary 
readers or other reading books for the use of the 
children. 

The result is that most rural school children 
learn to read but stumblingly, and seldom attain 
66 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

sufficient skill and taste in reading so that it be- 
comes a pleasure. Such a situation as this indi- 
cates the same lack of wisdom that would be 
shown in employing willing and skillful work- 
men to garner a rich harvest, and then sending 
them into the fields with wholly insufficient and 
inadequate tools. The rural school must not only 
teach the child the mechanics of reading, but 
lead him to read and love good books. This can 
be done only by supplying the books and giving 
the child an opportunity to read them. 

Comparatively few people like to write. The 
pathway of expression finds its way out more 
easily through the tongue than through the 
hand. Yet it is highly necessary that every one 
should in this day be able to write. Nor does 
this mean merely the ability to form letters into 
words and put them down with a pen so that 
they are legible. This is a fundamental requisite, 
but the mastery of penmanship, spelling, and 
punctuation is, however, only a beginning. One 
must be able to formulate his thoughts easily, to 
construct his sentences correctly, and to make 
his writing effective ; he must learn the art of 
composition. 

Here again the principle already stated ap- 
plies. The way to learn to write is by writing ; 

67 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

not just by the dreary treadmill of practicing upon 
formal " compositions," but by having something 
to write that one cares to express. The written 
language lessons should, therefore, always grow 
out of the real interests and activities of the child 
in the home, the school, or on the farm, and 
should include the art of letter-writing, argu- 
mentation and exposition, as well as narration 
and description. 

The subject of formal grammar has little or no 
place in the grades of the elementary school. The 
grammatical relations of the language are com- 
plicated and beyond the power of the child at an 
early age. Nor does the study of such relations 
result in efficiency in the use of language, as is 
commonly supposed. Children are compelled in 
many schools to waste weary years in the study 
of logical relations they are too young to com- 
prehend, when they should be reading, speaking, 
and writing their mother tongue under the stim- 
ulus and guidance of a teacher who is himself a 
worthy and enthusiastic model in the use of 
speech. Only the simpler grammatical forms and 
relations should be taught in the grades, and 
these should have immediate application to oral 
and written speech. 

Arithmetic. Arithmetic has for more than two 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

hundred years formed an important part of the 
elementary school curriculum. It has been taught 
with the double object of affording mental dis- 
cipline for the child, and of putting him into 
possession of an important tool of practical 
knowledge. It is safe to say that a large propor- 
tion of the patrons of the rural schools of the 
present look upon arithmetic as the most impor- 
tant subject taught in the school after the sim- 
ple mechanics of reading. Ability to "cipher" 
has been thought of as constituting a large and 
important part of the educational equipment of 
the practical man. 

Without doubt, number is an essential part of 
the education of the child. Yet there is nothing 
in the mere art of numbering things as we meet 
them in daily experience that should make arith- 
metic require so large a proportion of time as it 
has been receiving. The child is usually started 
in number in the first grade, and continues it the 
full eight years of the elementary course, finally 
devoting three or more years of the high school 
course to its continued study. Thus, nearly one 
fourth of the entire school time of the pupil is 
demanded by the various phases of the number 
concept. 

The only ground upon which the expenditure 

69 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

of this large proportion of time upon number can 
be defended is that of discipline. And modern 
psychology and experimental pedagogy have 
shown the folly and waste of setting up empty 
discipline as an educational aim. Education time 
is too short, and the amount of rich and valuable 
material waiting to be mastered too great, to de- 
vote golden years to a relatively barren grind. 

It is probable that at least half the time at 
present devoted to arithmetic in the elementary 
school could be given to other subjects with no 
loss to the child's ability in number, and with 
great gain to his education as a whole. Not that 
the child knows number any too well now. He 
does not. In fact, few children finishing the 
elementary school possess any considerable de- 
gree of ability in arithmetic. They can work 
rather hard problems, if they have a textbook, 
and the answers by which to test their results. 
But give them a practical problem from the 
home, the farm, or the shop, and the chances are 
two to one that they cannot secure a correct re- 
sult. This is not the fault of the child, but the 
fault of the kind of arithmetic he has been given, 
and the way it has been taught. We have taught 
him the solution of various difficult, analytical 
problems not in the least typical of the concrete 
70 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

problems to be met daily outside of school ; but 
we have not taught him to add, subtract, multi- 
ply, and divide with rapidity and accuracy. We 
have required him to solve problems containing 
fractions with large and irreducible denominators 
such as are never met in the business world, but 
he cannot readily and with certainty handle num- 
bers expressed in halves, thirds, quarters, fifths, 
and eighths. He has been compelled to sacrifice 
practical business efficiency in number to an at- 
tempt to train his powers of logical analysis. 

The arithmetic of the district school should be 
greatly simplified and reduced in quantity. Its 
quality should be greatly improved both as to 
accuracy and speed in the fundamental opera- 
tions and in the various concrete types of prob- 
lems to be met in the home, on the farm, and in 
the shop. There need be no fear that the mental 
training will be less efficient with this type of 
arithmetic. For mental development comes only 
where there is mastery, and there is no mastery 
of the arithmetic as it is taught in the rural 
school to-day. 

History and civics. Every American child 
should know the history and mode of government 
of his country. This is true first of all because 
this knowledge is necessary to intelligent partici- 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

pation in the affairs of a republic; but it is also 
necessary to the right development of the indi- 
vidual that he shall realize something of the 
heroism and sacrifice required to produce the 
civilization which he enjoys. Every person needs 
to extend his thought and appreciation until it 
is large enough to include other peoples and 
times than his own. For only in this way can he 
come to feel kinship with the race at large, and 
thus save himself from provincialism and nar- 
rowness. 

This is equivalent to saying that the curric- 
ulum should afford ample opportunity for the 
study of history. Nor should the history given 
the child deal chiefly with the military and pol- 
itical activities of the nation. Many text books 
have been little more than an account of wars 
and politics. These are not the aspects of na- 
tional life that most interest and concern the 
child, especially at the age when he is in the ele- 
mentary school. He should at this time be told 
about the people of his country, — their home 
life, their industries, their schools and churches, 
their bravery, their hardships, adventures, and 
achievements. He must come to know something 
of the great men and women of his Nation and 
State, the writers, inventors, explorers, scientists, 
72 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

artists, and musicians, as well as the soldiers 
and statesmen. 

Not only does this require that the child shall 
have suitable textbooks in history, but that he 
shall also have an adequate library of interest- 
ing histories, biographies, and historical fiction 
adapted to his age and interests. For it is not 
enough that the child shall learn the elementary 
facts of history while he is in the elementary 
school ; more important still is it that he shall 
develop a real interest in history, and form the 
taste for reading historical matter. 

The course in history must, therefore, contain 
such matter as the child will love to read ; for 
only then will it leave the desire to read. It must 
so put a premium upon patriotism, loyalty to 
country, and high-grade citizenship that the 
child shall feel the impulse to emulate the noble 
men and women who have contributed to our 
happiness and welfare. The study of history, 
even in the elementary school, should eventuate 
in loyal, efficient citizenship. 

The civics taught in the elementary school 
should be very practical and concrete. The age 
has not yet come for a study of the federal or 
state constitution. It is rather Xh^ functional as- 
pect of government that should be presented at 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

this time — the points of contact of school dis- 
trict, township, county, state and federal gov- 
ernment with the individual. How the school 
is supported and controlled ; how the bridges 
are built and roads repaired ; the work of town- 
ship and county affairs ; the powers and duties 
of boards of health ; the right of franchise and 
the use of the ballot ; the work of the postal 
system; the making and enforcing of laws, — 
these and similar topics suggest what the child 
should come to know from the study of civics. 
The great problem here is to influence conduct 
in the direction of upright citizenship, and to give 
such a knowledge of the machinery, especially of 
local government, as will lead to efficient partici- 
pation in its activities. 

Geography and nature study. The rural school 
has a great advantage over the city school in 
the teaching of geography and nature study. 
For the country child is closer to the earth and 
its products than the city child. The broad ex- 
panse of nature is always before him ; life in its 
multiple forms constantly appeals to his eye and 
ear. He watches the seeds planted, and sees the 
crops cultivated and harvested. He has a very 
concrete sense of the earth as the home of man, 
and possesses a basis of practical knowledge for 

74 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

understanding the resources and products of his 
own and other countries. 

Geography should, therefore, be one of the 
most vital and useful branches in the rural 
school. It is to begin wherever the life of the 
child touches nature in his immediate environ- 
ment, and proceed from this on out to other parts 
of his home land, and finally to all lands. 

But the geography taught must not be of the 
old catechism type, which resulted in children 
committing to memory the definitions of geo- 
graphical terms instead of studying the real ob- 
jects ready at hand. It must not concern itself 
with the pupil's learning the names and locations 
of dozens of places and geographical forms of no 
particular importance, instead of coming into im- 
mediate touch with natural environment and with 
the earth in the larger sense as it bears upon his 
own life. The author has expressed this idea in 
another place as follows : — 

" The content of geography is, therefore, syno- 
nymous with the content of the experience of 
the child as related to his own interests and ac- 
tivities, in so far as they grow out of the earth as 
his home. Towns and cities begin with the ones 
nearest at hand. The concept of rivers has its 
rise in the one that flows past the child's home. 

75 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

Valleys, mountains, capes, and bays are but modi- 
fications of those that lie within the circle of 
personal experience. Generalizations must come 
to be made, but they must rest upon concrete 
and particular instances if they are to constitute 
a reality to the learner. 

" What kind of people live in a country, what 
they work at, what they eat, and how they live 
in their homes and their schools, what weather 
they have, and what they wear, how they travel 
and speak and read, — these are more vital ques- 
tions to the child than the names and locations 
of unimportant streams, towns, capes, and bays. 
For they are the things that touch his own ex- 
perience, and hence appeal to his interest. Only 
as geography is given this social background, 
and concerns itself with the earth as related to 
social activities, can it fulfill its function in the 
elementary school." ^ 

Hygiene and health. Since health is at the 
basis of all success and happiness, nothing can 
be more important in the education of the child 
than the subject of practical hygiene. It has 
been the custom in our schools until recently, 
however, to give the child a difficult and unin- 
teresting text book dealing with physiology and 

1 Social Principles of Education^ ^, 264. 

76 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

anatomy, but containing almost nothing on hy- 
giene and the laws of health. 

Not only should the course in physiology em- 
phasize the laws of hygiene, but this hygiene 
should in part have particular bearing on right 
living under the conditions imposed by the farm. 
Food, its variety, adaptability, and preparation ; 
clothing for the different seasons ; work, recrea- 
tion, and play ; care of the eyes and teeth ; bath- 
ing ; the ventilation of the home, and especially 
of sleeping-rooms ; the effects of tobacco and 
cigarettes in checking growth and reducing effi- 
ciency ; the more simple and obvious facts bear- 
ing on the relation of bacteria to the growth, 
preparation, and spoiling of foods ; the means to 
be taken to prevent bacterial contagion of dis- 
eases, — these are some of the practical matters 
that every child should know as a result of his 
study of physiology and hygiene. 

But we must go one step further still. It is 
not enough to teach these things as matters of 
abstract theory or truth. Plenty of people know 
better hygiene than they are practicing. The sub- 
ject must be presented so concretely and effect- 
ively and be supported by such incentives that it 
will actually lead to better habits of living — that 
it will result in higher physical efficiency. 

77 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

Agriculture. Agriculture is of course preemin- 
ently a subject for the rural school. Not only is 
it of immediate and direct practical importance, 
but it is coming to be looked upon as so useful a 
cultural study that it is being introduced into 
many city schools. 

It has been objected that agriculture as a sci- 
ence cannot be taught in the elementary school 
because of the lack of age and development of 
the pupils. This is true, but neither can any 
other subject be taught to children of this age as 
a complete science. It is possible, however, to 
give children in the rural elementary school 
much useful information concerning agriculture. 
Perhaps better still, it is possible to develop a 
scientific attitude and interest that will lead to 
further study of the subject in the high school 
or agricultural college, and that will in the mean- 
time serve to attach the boys and girls to the 
farm. 

The rural school pupils can be made familiar 
with the best modes of planting and cultivating 
the various crops, and with the diseases and in- 
sect enemies which threaten them ; the selection 
of seed ; the rotation of crops, and many other 
practical things applying directly to their home 
life. School gardens of vegetables and flowers 
78 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

constitute another center of interest and infor- 
mation, and serve to unite the school and the 
home. 

Similarly the animal life of the farm can be 
studied, and a knowledge gained of the best 
varieties of farm stock, their breeding and care. 
Insects and bird life can be observed, and their 
part in the growth or destruction of crops un- 
derstood. All this is not only practicable, but 
necessary as part of the rural school curriculum. 
Anything less than this amount of practical 
agriculture leaves the rural school in some de- 
gree short of fulfilling its function. 

Domestic science and manual training. In gen- 
eral what is true of agriculture is true of domestic 
science and manual training. They can be pre- 
sented in the elementary school only in the most 
concrete and applied form. But they can be suc- 
cessfully presented in this form, and must be if 
the rural school child is to have an equal opportu- 
nity with the town and city child. The girls can 
be taught the art of sewing, cooking, and serving, 
if only the necessary equipment and instruction 
are available. They are ready to learn, the sub- 
ject-m^atter is adapted to their age and under- 
standing, and nothing could be more vital to 
their interests and welfare. 

79 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

Likewise the boys can be taught the use of 
tools, the value and finishing of different kinds 
of woods, and can develop no little skill with 
their hands, while they are at the same time re- 
ceiving mental development and the cultivation 
of practical interests from this line of work. It 
is not in the least a question of the readiness of 
the boys to take up and profit by this subject, 
but is only a matter of equipment and teach- 
ing. 

Music and art. Nor should the finer aspects 
of culture be left out of the education of the 
country child. He will learn music as readily as 
the city child, and love it not less. Indeed, he 
needs it even more as a part of his schooling, 
since the opportunities to hear and enjoy music 
are always at hand in the city, and nearly always 
lacking in the country. The child should be 
taught to sing and at least to understand and 
appreciate music of worthy type. 

The same principle will apply to art. The great 
masterpieces of painting and sculpture have as 
much of beauty and inspiration in them as the 
great masterpieces of literature. Yet most rural 
children complete their schooling hardly having 
seen in the schoolroom a worthy copy of a great 
picture, and much less have they been taught the 
80 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

significance of great works of art or been led to 
appreciate and love them. 

Physical training. It has been argued by many 
that the rural child has enough exercise and 
hence does not need physical training. But this 
position entirely misconceives the purpose of 
physical training. One may have plenty of exer- 
cise, even too much exercise, without securing 
a well-balanced physical development. Indeed, 
certain forms of farm work done by children are 
often so severe a tax on their strength that a 
corrective exercise is necessary in order to save 
stooped forms, curved spines, and hollow chests. 
Furthermore, the farm child, lacking the oppor- 
tunities of the city child for gaining social ease 
and control, needs the development that comes 
from physical training to give poise, ease of 
bearing, and grace of movement. 

Nor must the athletic phase of physical train- 
ing be overlooked. While it is undoubtedly true 
that athletics have come to occupy too large a 
part of the time and absorb too great a propor- 
tion of the interest in many schools, yet this is no 
reason for omitting avocational training wholly 
from the rural school. Children require the train- 
ing and development that come from games and 
play quite as much as they need that coming 
8i 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

from work. The school owes a duty to the avo- 
cational side of life as well as to the vocational. 

The curriculum here proposed is so much 
broader and richer than that now offered in the 
rural district school that it will appear to many 
to be visionary and impossible. That it is im- 
possible for the old type of rural school will be 
readily admitted. But it is entirely practicable 
and possible in the reorganized consolidated 
school, and is being successfully presented, in 
its general aspects, at least, in many of these 
schools. It is only such an education as every 
rural child is entitled to, and is no more than 
the urban child is already receiving in the better 
class of town and city elementary schools. If the 
rural school cannot give the farm child an ele- 
mentary education approximating the one out- 
lined, it has no claim on his loyalty or time ; and 
he should in justice to himself be taken where 
he can receive a worthy education, even if he is 
thereby lost to the farm. 

But the rural boy and girl need not only a good 
elementary education, but a high school educa- 
tion as well. Let us next consider the rural high 
school curriculum. 



82 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

The rural high school curriculum 

This section is presented in the full know- 
ledge that comparatively few localities have as 
yet established the rural high school. It now 
forms, however, an integral part of the consoli- 
dated rural school in not a few places, and is 
abundantly justifying the expenditure made upon 
it. In other localities the tendency is growing to 
send the rural child to the town high school, or 
even for the family to move to town to secure 
high schooling for the children. In still other 
cases, and we are obliged to admit that these yet 
constitute the rule rather than the exception, the 
farm boy or girl has no opportunity for a high 
school education. 

If we succeed in working out the so-called 
rural problem of our country, in maintaining a 
high standard of agricultural population and rural 
life, the rural high school must be an important 
factor in our problem. For the children of our 
farms need and must have an education reach- 
ing beyond that of the elementary school. And 
this schooling must prepare them to find the 
most satisfactory and successful type of life on 
the farm, instead of drawing them away from 
the farm. 

83 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

It goes without saying that the rural high 
school should be an agricultural high school. 
This does not mean that it shall devote itself 
exclusively to teaching agriculture; but rather 
that, while it offers a broad range of culture and 
information, it shall emphasize those phases of 
subject-matter that will best fit into the interests 
and activities of farm life, instead of those phases 
that tend to lead toward the city or the market- 
place. Its four years of work must be fully equal 
to that of the best town or city high schools, but 
must in some degree be different work. It must 
result in efficiencyy and efficiency here must re- 
late itself to agricultural life and pursuits. 

A detailed discussion of the rural high school 
curriculum will not be required. The principles 
already suggested as applying to the elementary 
school will govern here as well. The studies 
must cultivate breadth of view and a wide range 
of interests, and must at the same time bear 
upon the immediate life and experience of the 
pupils. The lines of study begun in the element- 
ary school will be continued, with the purpose 
of securing deeper insight, more detailed know- 
ledge, and greater independence of judgment 
and action. 

English should form an important part of the 

84 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

curriculum, with the double aim of securing 
facility in the use of the mother tongue and of 
developing a love for its literature. The rural 
high school graduate should be able to write 
English correctly as to spelling, punctuation, 
and grammar ; he should be able to express him- 
self effectively, either in writing, conversation, 
or the more formal speech of the rostrum. Above 
all, he should be an enthusiastic and discrimin- 
ating reader, with a catholicity of taste and in- 
terest that will lead him beyond the agricultural 
journal and newspaper, important as these are, 
to the works of fiction, material and social science, 
travel and biography, current magazines and 
journals, and whatever else belongs to the intel- 
lectual life of an intelligent, educated man of 
affairs. 

This is asking more than is being accom- 
plished at present by the course in English in 
the town high school, but not more than is eas- 
ily within the range of possibility. The average 
high school graduate of to-day cannot always 
spell and punctuate correctly, and commonly 
cannot write well even an ordinary business let- 
ter ; nor, it must be feared, has his study of lit- 
erature had a very great influence in developing 
him into a good reader of worthy books. 

85 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

But all this can be remedied by vitalizing the 
teaching of the mother tongue ; by lessening the 
proportion of time and emphasis placed upon 
critical analysis and technical literary criticism, 
and increasing that given to the drill and prac- 
tice that alone can make sure of the fundamen- 
tals of spelling, punctuation, and the common 
forms of composition emphasized by all ; and by 
the sympathetic, enthusiastic teaching of good lit- 
erature adapted to the age and interests of the 
pupils from the standpoint of synthetic apprecia- 
tion and enjoyment, rather than from the stand- 
point of mechanical analysis. 

The rural high school course in social science 
should be broad and thorough. The course in 
history should not give an undue proportion of 
time to ancient and medieval history, nor to war 
and politics. Emphasis should be placed on the 
social, industrial, and economic phases of human 
development in modern times and in our own 
country. 

Political economy should form an important 
branch. Especially should it deal with the prob- 
lems of production, distribution, and consump- 
tion as they relate to agriculture. Matters of 
finance, taxation, and investment, while resting 
on general principles, should be applied to the 
S6 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

problems of the farm. Nor should the economic 
basis of support and expenditure in the home be 
overlooked. 

The course in civics should not only present 
the general theory of government, but should 
apply concretely to the civic relations and duties 
of a rural population. Especially should it appeal 
to the civic conscience and sense of responsibility 
which we need among our rural people to make 
the country an antidote to the political corrup- 
tion of the city. 

Material science should constitute an import- 
ant section of the rural high school curriculum. 
Not only does its study afford one of the best 
means of mental development, but the subject- 
matter of science has a very direct bearing on 
the life and industries of the farm. To achieve the 
best results, however, the science taught must be 
presented from the concrete and applied point of 
view rather than from the abstract and general. 
This does not mean that a hodge-podge of unre- 
lated facts shall be taught in the place of sci- 
ence ; indeed, such a method would defeat the 
whole purpose of the course. It means, however, 
that the general laws and principles of science 
shall be carried out to their practical bearing on 
the problems of the home and the farm, and not 

87 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

be left just as general laws or abstract principles 
unapplied. 

The botany and zoology of the rural high 
school will, of course, have a strong agricultural 
trend. It will sacrifice the old logical classifica- 
tions and study of generic types of animals and 
plants for the more interesting and useful study 
of the fauna and flora of the locality. The vari- 
ous farm crops, their weed enemies, the help- 
ful and harmful insects and birds, the animal life 
of the barnyard, horticulture and floriculture, 
and the elements of bacteriology, will constitute 
important elements in the course. 

The course in physics will develop the general 
principles of the subject, and will then apply 
these principles to the machinery of the farm, to 
the heating, lighting, and ventilation of houses, 
to the drainage of soil, the plumbing of buildings, 
and a hundred other practical problems bearing 
on the life of the farm. Chemistry will be taught 
as related to the home, foods, soils, and crops. A 
concrete geology will lead to a better under- 
standing of soils, building materials, and drain- 
age. Physiology and hygiene will seek as their 
aim longer life and higher personal efficiency. 

The course in agriculture, whether presented 
separately or in conjunction with botany and 
8S 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

zoology, must be comprehensive and thorough. 
Not only should it give a complete and practical 
knowledge of the selection of seed; the planting, 
cultivating, and harvesting of crops ; the improve- 
ment and conservation of the soil ; the breeding 
and care of stock, etc., but it must serve to cre- 
ate and develop a scientific attitude toward farm- 
ing. The farmer should come to look upon his 
work as offering the largest opportunities for the 
employment of technical knowledge, judgment, 
and skill. That such an attitude will yield large 
returns in success is attested by many farmers 
to-day who are applying scientific methods to 
their work. 

Manual training and domestic science should 
receive especial emphasis in the rural high school. 
Both subjects have undoubted educational value 
in themselves, and their practical value and im- 
portance to those looking forward to farm life can 
hardly be over-estimated. And in these as in 
other subjects, the course offered will need to be 
modified from that of the city school in order to 
meet the requirements of the particular problems 
to which the knowledge and training secured are 
to be applied. 

Mathematics should form a part of the rural 
high school curriculum, but the traditional courses 

83 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

in algebra and geometry do not meet the need. 
The ideal course would probably be a skillful 
combination of algebra, geometry, and trigono- 
metry occupying the time of one or two years, 
and applied directly to the problems of mechanics, 
measurements, surveying, engineering, and build- 
ing on the farm. Such an idea is not new, and 
textbooks are now under way providing material 
for such a course. 

In addition, there should be a thorough course 
in practical business arithmetic. By this is not 
meant the abstract, analytical matter so often 
taught as high school arithmetic, but concrete 
and applied commercial and industrial arithmetic, 
with particular reference to farm problems. In 
connection with this subject should be given a 
course in household accounts, and book-keep- 
ing, including commercial forms and commercial 
law. 

It is doubtful whether foreign language has 
any place in the rural high school. If offered at all, 
it should be only in high schools strong enough 
to offer parallel courses for election, and should 
never displace the subjects lying closer to the 
interests and needs of the students. 

The study of music and art begun in the ele- 
mentary school should be continued in the high 
90 



CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

school, and a love for the beautiful cultivated 
not only by the matter taught, but also by the 
aesthetic qualities of the school buildings and 
grounds and their decoration. On the practical 
sides these subjects will reach out to the beautify- 
ing of the farm homes and the life they shelter. 
When a well-taught curriculum of some such 
scope of elementary and high school work as that 
suggested is as freely available to the farm child 
as his school is available to the city child, will the 
country boys and girls have a fair chance for 
education. And when this comes about, the 
greatest single obstacle to keeping our young 
people on the farm will have been removed. 



IV 

THE TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

The importance of teaching 

Teaching is the fundamental purpose for which 
the school is run. Taxes are levied and collected, 
buildings erected and equipped, and curriculum 
organized solely that teaching may go on. Child- 
ren are clothed and fed and sent to school instead 
of being put at work in order that they may be 
taught. The school is classified into grades, pro- 
grams are arranged, and regulations are enforced 
only to make teaching possible. Normal schools 
are established, teachers are trained, and certi- 
ficates required in order that teaching may be 
more efficient. 

The teacher confronts a great task. On the one 
hand are the children, ignorant, immature, and 
undeveloped. In them lie ready to be called forth 
all the powers and capacities that will character- 
ize their fully ripened manhood and womanhood. 
Given the right stimulus and direction, these 
powers will grow into splendid strength and ca- 
92 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

pacity ; lacking this stimulus and guidance, the 
powers are left crippled and incomplete. 

On the other hand is the subject-matter of 
education, the heritage of culture which has been 
accumulating through the ages. In the slow pro- 
cess of human experience, running through count- 
less generations, men have made their discoveries 
in the fields of mathematics and science ; they 
have lived great events and achievements which 
have become history ; they have developed the 
social institutions which we call the State, the 
church, the home, and the school ; they have or- 
ganized great industries and carried on complex 
vocations ; they have crystallized their ideals, 
their hopes, and their aspirations in literature ; 
and have with brush and chisel expressed in art 
their concepts of truth and beauty. The best of 
all this human experience we have collected in 
what we call a curriculum, and placed it before 
the child for him to master, as the generations 
before him have mastered it in their common 
lives. For only in this way can the child come 
into full possession of his powers, and set them 
at work in a fruitful way in accomplishing his 
own life-purpose. 

It is the function of the teacher, therefore, to 
stand as an intermediary, as an interpreter, be- 

93 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

tween the child and this great mass of subject- 
matter that lies ready for him to learn. The race 
has lived its thousands or millions of years ; the 
individual lives but a few score. What former 
generations took centuries to work out the child 
can spend only a few months or a few years upon. 
Hence he must waste no time and opportunity ; 
he must make no false step in his learning, for 
he cannot in his short life retrieve his mistakes. 
It is the work of the teacher, through instruction 
and guidance, that is, through teaching, to save 
the child time in his learning and development, 
and to make sure that he does not lose his op- 
portunity. And this is a great responsibility. 

Thus the teacher confronts a problem that has 
two great factors, the child and Xh^ subject-matter. 
He must have a knowledge of both these factors 
if his work is to be effective ; for he cannot teach 
matter that he does not know, and neither can 
he teach a person whose nature he does not un- 
derstand. But in addition to a knowledge of these 
factors, the teacher must also master a technique 
of instruction, he must train himself in the art of 
teaching. 

The teacher must know the child. It has been 
a rather common impression that if one knows a 
certain field of subject-matter, he will surely be 

94 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

able to teach it to others. But nothing could be 
further from the truth than such an assumption. 
Indeed, it is proverbial that the great specialists 
are the most wretched teachers of their subjects. 
The nature of the child's mental powers, the 
order of their unfoldment, the evolution of his 
interests, the incentives that appeal to him, the 
danger points in both his intellectual and his moral 
development, — these and many other things 
about child nature the intelligent teacher must 
clearly understand. 

And the teacher of the younger children needs 
this knowledge even more than the teacher of 
older ones. For the earlier years of the child's 
schooling are the most important years. It is at 
this time that he lays the foundation for all later 
learning, that he forms his habits of study and 
his attitude toward education, and that his life 
is given the bent for all its later development. 
Nothing can be more irrational, therefore, than 
to put the most untrained and inexperienced 
teachers in charge of the younger children. The 
fallacious notion that "anyone can teach little 
children'* has borne tragic fruit in the stagna- 
tion and mediocrity of many lives whose powers 
were capable of great achievements. 

Tke teacher must know the sttbject-matter. The 

9S 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

blind cannot successfully lead the blind. One 
whose grasp of a subject extends only to the 
simplest rudiments cannot teach these rudi- 
ments. He who has never himself explored a 
field can hardly guide others through that field ; 
at least, progress through the field will be at the 
cost of great waste of time and failure to grasp the 
significance or beauty of what the field contains. 

Expressed more concretely, it is impossible to 
transplant arithmetic, or geography, or history, 
or anything else that one would teach, immedi- 
ately from the textbook into the mind of the 
child. The subject must first come to be very 
fully and completely a true possession of the 
teacher. The successful teacher must also know 
vastly more of a subject than he is required to 
teach. For only then has he freedom ; only then 
has he outlook and perspective ; only then can he 
teach the subject ^ and not some particular text- 
book ; only then can he inspire others to effort 
and achievement through his own mastery and 
interest. Enthusiasm is caught and not taught. 

The teacher must know the technique of instruc- 
tion. For teaching is an arty based upon scien- 
tific principles and requiring practice to secure 
skill. One of the greatest tasks of the teacher is 
X.0 psychologize the subject-matter for his pupils, 

96 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

— that is, so to select, organize, and present it 
that the child's mind naturally and easily grasps 
and appropriates it. Teaching, when it has be- 
come an art, which is to say, when the teacher 
has become an artist, is one of the most highly 
skilled vocations. It is as much more difficult 
than medicine as the human mind is more baf- 
fling than the human body ; it is as much more 
difficult than preaching as the child is harder to 
comprehend and guide than the adult ; it is as 
much more difficult than the law as life is more 
complex than logic. 

Yet, while we require the highest type of prep- 
aration for medicine, the ministry, or the law, we 
require but little for teaching. We pay enormous 
salaries to trained experts to apply the princi- 
ples of scientific management to our industries 
or our business, but we have been satisfied with 
inexpert service for the teaching of our children. 
We are making fortunes out of the stoppage of 
waste in our factories, but allowing enormous 
waste to continue in our schools. If we were 
to put into practice in teaching the thoroughly 
demonstrated and accepted scientific principles of 
education as we know theniy we could beyond 
doubt double the educational results attained by 
our children. 

97 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

Teaching in the rural school 

The criticisms just made on our standards of 
teaching will apply in some degree to all our 
schools from the kindergarten to the university ; 
but they apply more strongly to the rural schools 
than to any other class. For the rural schools are 
the training -ground for young, inexperienced, 
and relatively unprepared teachers. Except for 
the comparatively small proportion of the town 
or city teachers who are normal school or college 
trained, nearly all have served an apprenticeship 
in the rural schools. Thus the rural school, besides 
its other handicaps, is called upon to train teach- 
ers for the more favored urban schools. 

Careful statistical studies ^ have shown that 
many rural teachers, both men and women, have 
had no training beyond that of the elementary 
school. And not infrequently this training has 
taken place in the rural school of the type in 
which they themselves take up teaching. The 
average schooling of the men teaching in the 
rural schools of the entire country is less than 
two years above the elementary school, and of 
women, slightly more than two years. This is to 

* See Coffman, The Social Composition of the Teaching 
Force, 

98 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

say that our rural schools are taught by those who 
have had only about half of a high school course. 
It is evident, therefore, that the rural teacher 
cannot meet the requirement urged above in the 
way of preparation. He does not know his sub- 
ject-matter. Not only has he not gone far enough 
in his education to have a substantial foundation, 
breadth of view, and mental perspective, but he 
frequently lacks in the simplest rudiments of the 
immediate subject-matter which he is supposed 
to teach. The examination papers written by 
applicants for certificates to begin rural school 
teaching often betray a woful ignorance of the 
most fundamental knowledge. Inability to spell, 
punctuate, or effectively use the English language 
is common. The most elementary scientific truths 
are frequently unknown. A connected view of 
our nation's history and knowledge of current 
events are not always possessed. The great world 
of literature is too often a closed book. And not 
seldom the simple relations of arithmetical num- 
ber are beyond the grasp of the applicant. In 
short, our rural schools, as they average, require 
no adequate preparation of the teacher, and do 
not represent as much education in their teaching 
force as that needed by the intelligent farmer, 
merchant, or tradesman. 

99 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

The rural teacher does not know the child. 
But little more than children themselves, and 
with little chance for observation or for experi- 
ence in life, it would be strange if they did. They 
have had no opportunity for professional study, 
and psychology and the science of education are 
unknown to them. The attempts made to remedy 
this fatal weakness by the desultory reading of 
a volume or two in a voluntary reading-circle 
course do not serve the purpose. The teacher 
needs a thorough course of instruction in general 
and applied psychology, under the tutelage of an 
enthusiastic expert who not only knows his sub- 
ject, but also understands the problems of the 
teacher. 

The rural teacher does not know the technique 
of the schoolroom. The organizing of a school, 
the proper classification of pupils, the assign- 
ment of studies, the arrangement of a program of 
studies and recitation, the applications of suitable 
regulations and rules for the running of the school, 
are all matters requiring expert knowledge and 
skill. Yet the rural teacher has to undertake them 
without instruction in their principles and with- 
out supervisory guidance or help. No wonder that 
the rural school is poorly organized and managed. 
It presents problems of administration more puz- 

100 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

zling than the town school, and yet here is where 
we put out our novices, boys and girls not yet out 
of their *' teens " — young people who themselves 
have no concept of the problems of the school, no 
knowledge of its complex machinery, and no ex- 
perience to serve as a guide in confronting their 
work. No industrial enterprise could exist un- 
der such irrational conditions ; and neither could 
the schools, except that mental waste and bank- 
ruptcy are harder to measure than economic. 

Nor does the rural teacher know the technique 
of instruction any better than that of organiza- 
tion and management. The skillful conducting 
of a recitation is at least as severe a test upon 
mental resourcefulness and skill as making a 
speech, preaching a sermon, or conducting a law- 
suit. For not only must the subject-matter be 
organized for immature minds unused to the 
formal processes of learning, but the effects of in- 
struction upon the child's mind must constantly 
be watched by the teacher and interpreted with 
reference to further instruction. This skill can- 
not be attained empirically, by the cut-and-dried 
method, except at a frightful cost to the children. 
It is as if we were to turn a set of intelligent but 
untrained men loose in the community with their 
scalpels and their medicine cases to learn to be 

lOI 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

surgeons and doctors by experimenting upon 
their fellows. 

As would naturally be expected, therefore, the 
teaching in the average rural school is a dreary 
round of inefficiency. Handicapped to begin with 
by classes too small to be interesting, the rural 
teacher is mechanically hearing the recitations 
of some twenty-five to thirty of these classes per 
day. Lacking at the beginning the breadth of 
education that would make teaching easy, he 
finds it impossible to prepare for so many differ- 
ent exercises daily. The result is that the reci- 
tations are dull, spiritless, uninteresting. The 
lessons are poorly prepared by the pupils, poorly 
recited, and hence very imperfectly mastered. 
The more advanced work cannot stand on such 
a foundation of sand, and so, discouraged, the 
child soon drops out of school. 

When it is also remembered that the tenure of 
service of the teacher is very short in the rural 
schools, the problem becomes all the more grave. 
The average term of service in the rural schools is 
probably not above two years, and in many States 
considerably below this amount. This requires 
that half of the rural teachers each year shall be 
beginners. It will be impossible, of course, as long 
as teaching is done so largely by girls, who nat- 

102 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

urally will, and should, soon quit teaching for 
marriage, to secure a long period of service in 
the vocation. Yet the rural school is, as we have 
seen, also constantly losing its trained teachers 
to the town and city, and hence breaking in 
more than its share of novices. 

Added to the disadvantage inevitably coming 
from the brief period of service in teaching is 
a similar one growing out of a faulty method of 
administration. In a large majority of our rural 
schools the contract is made for but one term 
of not more than three months. This leaves the 
teacher free to accept another school at the end 
of the term, and not infrequently a school will 
have two or even three different teachers within 
the same year. There is a great source of waste 
at this point, owing to a change of methods, re- 
petition of work, and the necessity of starting a 
new system of school machinery. Industrial con- 
cerns would hardly find it profitable to change 
superintendents and foremen several times a 
year. We do this in our schools only because we 
have not yet learned that it pays to apply ra- 
tional business methods to education. 

Nothing that has been said in criticism of rural, 
teaching ought to be construed as a reflection 
on the rural teachers personally. The fact that 

IQ3 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

they can succeed as well as they do under con- 
ditions that are so adverse is the best warrant 
for their intelligence and devotion. It is not their 
fault that they begin teaching with inadequate 
knowledge of subject-matter, with ignorance of 
the nature of childhood, and without skill in the 
technique of the schoolroom. The system, and 
not the individual, is at fault. The public de- 
mands a pitifully low standard of efficiency in 
rural teaching, and the excellence of the product 
offered is not likely greatly to surpass what so- 
ciety asks and is ready to pay for. 

Once again we must turn to the consolidated 
school as the solution of our difficulty. The iso- 
lated district school will not be able to demand 
and secure a worthy grade of preparation for 
teaching. The educational standards will not rise 
high enough under this system to create a pub- 
lic demand for skilled teachers. Nor can such 
salaries be paid as will encourage thorough and 
extensive study and preparation for teaching. 
And, finally, the professional incentives are not 
sufficiently strong in such schools to create a 
true craft spirit toward teaching. 

While it is impossible to measure the improved 
results in teaching coming from the consolidated 
school in the same objective way that we can 
104 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

measure increased attendance, yet there is no 
doubt that one of the strongest arguments for 
the consolidated school is its more skillful and 
inspiring teaching. The increased salaries, the 
possibility of professional association with other 
teachers, the improved equipment, the better 
supervision, and above all, the spirit of progress 
and enthusiasm in the school itself, all serve to 
transform teaching from a treadmill routine into 
a joyful opportunity for inspiration and service. 

The training of rural teachers 

The training of the rural teacher has never 
been given the same consideration as that of town 
or city teachers. It is true that normal schools 
are available to all alike, and that in a few States 
the rural schools secure a considerable number 
of teachers who have had some normal training. 
But this is the exception rather than the rule. 
In the Middle Western States, for example, where 
there is a rich agricultural population, whole coun- 
ties can be found in which no rural teacher has 
ever had any special training for his work. Pro- 
fessional requirements have been on a par with 
the meager salaries paid, and other incentives 
have not been strong enough to insure adequate 
preparation. 

lOS 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS \ 

State normal schools have, therefore, been of 
comparatively little assistance in fitting teachers 
for the rural school. First of all the rural school 
teacher ordinarily does not go to the normal 
school, for it is not demanded of him. Again, if 
perchance a prospective rural teacher should at- 
tend a normal school, a town or city grade posi- 
tion is usually waiting for him when he gradu- 
ates. For, in spite of the growth of our normal 
schools, they are as yet far from being able to 
supply all the teachers required for the urban 
grade positions, to say nothing about the rural 
schools. The colleges and universities are, of 
course, still further removed from the rural school, 
since the high schools stand ready to employ 
those of their graduates who enter upon teaching. 

In some States, as for example, Wisconsin, 
county normal schools have been established 
with the special aim of preparing teachers for the 
rural schools. While this movement has helped, 
it does not promise to secure wide acceptance as 
a method of dealing with the problem. Greater 
possibilities undoubtedly exist in the compara- 
tively recent movement toward combining nor- 
mal training with the regular high school course. 
Provision for such courses now exists in New 
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Minnesota, 
io6 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and a number of other 
States. 

Combining normal training with high school 
education has first of all the advantage of bring- 
ing such training to prospective teachers, instead 
of requiring the teachers to leave home and in- 
cur additional expense in seeking their training. 
From the standpoint of the public it has the 
merit of economy, in that it utilizes buildings, 
equipment, and organization already in existence 
instead of requiring new. 

But whatever may be the method employed, 
the rural teachers should receive better prepara- 
tion for their work than they now have. This 
means, j^rj/, that the State must make adequate 
provision for the teacher to receive his training 
at a minimum of expense and trouble; and secondy 
that the standard of requirement must be such 
that the teacher will be obliged to secure ade- 
quate preparation before being admitted to the 
school. Even with the present status of our rural 
schools it is not too much to require that every 
teacher shall have had at least a four-year high 
school educatiofiy and that a reasonable amount of 
normal training be had either in conjunction 
with the high school course, or subsequent to its 
completion. Indiana, for example, has found this 
107 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

requirement entirely feasible, and a great in- 
fluence in bettering the tone of the rural school. 
Wherever the rural teacher secures his train- 
ing, however, one condition must obtain : this 
preparation must familiarize him with the spirit 
and needs of the agricultural community, and 
imbue him with enthusiasm for service in this 
field. It is not infrequently the case that town 
high school graduates, themselves never having 
lived in the country, possess neither the sympa- 
thy nor the understanding necessary to enable 
them to offer a high grade of service in the rural 
school. Not a few of them feel above the work 
of such a position, and look with contempt or 
pity upon the life of the farm. The successful 
rural teacher must be able to identify himself 
very completely with the interests and activities 
of the community ; nor can this be done in any 
half-hearted, sentimental, or professional manner. 
It must be a spontaneous and natural response 
arising from a true interest in the people, a know- 
ledge of their lives, and a sincere desire for their 
welfare. Any preparation that does not result 
in this spirit, and train in the ability to realize it 
in action, does not fit for the rural school. 



io8 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

Salaries of rural teachers 

The salaries paid teachers in general in differ- 
ent types of schools are one measure, though not 
a perfect one, of their efficiency. Salary is not a 
perfect measure of efficiency, (i) because eco- 
nomic ability to pay is a modifying influence. 
When the early New England teacher was re- 
ceiving ten or twelve dollars a month and " board- 
ing round," he was probably getting all that the 
community could afford to pay him, although he 
was often a college student, and not infrequently 
a well-trained graduate. The salaries paid in the 
various occupations are not (2) based upon any 
definite standards of the value of service. For 
example, the chef in a hotel may receive more 
than the superintendent of schools, and the foot- 
ball coach more than the college president ; yet 
we would hardly want to conclude that the ser- 
vices of the cook and the athlete are worth more 
to society than the services of educators. And 
within the vocation of teaching itself there is (3) 
no fixed standard for judging teaching efficiency. 
Nevertheless, in general, teaching efficiency is in 
considerable degree measured by differences in 
salaries paid in different localities and in the 
various levels of school work. 
109 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

Based on the standard of salary as a measure, 
the teaching efficiency of rural teachers is, as 
we should expect from starting nearly all of our 
beginners here, considerably below that in towns 
or cities. A study by Coffman^ of more than 
five thousand widely distributed teachers as to 
age, sex, salary, etc., shows that the average 
man in the rural school receives an annual sal- 
ary of ^390; in town schools, of $61^; and in 
city schools, of 1^919. The average woman in the 
rural school receives an annual salary of ^366 ; 
in town schools, of ^492 ; and in city schools, of 
$Sgi. Men in towns, therefore, receive one and 
one half times as much as men in the country, 
and in cities, two and one half times as much as 
in the country. Women in towns receive a little 
more than one and one third times as much as 
women in the country, and in the cities almost 
one and two thirds times as much as women in 
the country. 

The actual amount of salary paid rural teach- 
ers is perhaps more instructive than the com- 
parative amounts. The income of the rural 
teacher is barely a living wage, and not even 
that if the teacher has no parental home, or a 
gainful occupation during vacation times. Out of 

1 TAe Social Composition of the Teaching Population. 
1 10 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

an amount of less than four hundred dollars a 
year the teacher is expected to pay for a certifi- 
cate, a few school journals and professional 
books, and attend teachers' institutes or conven- 
tions, besides supporting himself as a teacher 
ought to live. It does not need argument to 
show that this meager salary forces a standard 
of living too low for efficiency. It would, there- 
fore, be unfair to ask for efficiency with the pres- 
ent standard of salaries. 

Nor is it to be overlooked that efficiency and 
salaries must mount upward together. It would 
be as unjust to ask for higher salaries without 
increasing the grade of efficiency as to ask for 
efficiency on the present salary basis. It is 
probable that the eighteen- or nineteen-year-old 
boys and girls starting in to teach the rural 
school, with but little preparation above the 
elementary grades, are receiving all they are 
worth, at least as compared with what they could 
earn in other lines. The great point of difficulty 
is that they are not worth enough. The com- 
munity cannot afford to buy the kind of educa- 
tional service they are qualified to offer ; it would 
be a vastly better investment for the public 
to buy higher teaching efficiency at larger sala- 
ries. 

Ill 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

No statistics are available to show the exact 
percentage of increase in rural teachers' salaries 
during recent years, but this increase has been 
considerable ; and the tendency is still upward. 
In this as in other features of the rural school 
problem, however, it will be impossible to meet 
reasonable demands without forsaking the rural 
district system for a more centralized system of 
consolidated schools. To pay adequate salaries 
to the number of teachers now required for the 
thousands of small rural schools would be too 
heavy a drain on our economic resources. Under 
the consolidated system a considerably smaller 
number of teachers is required, and these can 
receive higher salaries without greatly increas- 
ing the amount expended for teaching. In this as 
in other phases of our educational problems, what 
is needed is rational business method, and a 
willingness to devote a fair proportion of our 
wealth to the education of the young. 

Supervision of rural teaching 

Our rural school teaching has never had effi- 
cient supervision. The very nature of rural school 
organization has rendered expert supervision im- 
possible, no matter how able the supervising of- 
ficer might be. With slight modifications, the 

112 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

office of county superintejident is, throughout the 
country, typical of the attempt to provide super- 
vision for the rural school. While such a system 
may have afforded all that could be expected in 
the pioneer days, its inadequacy to meet present- 
day demands is almost too patent to require dis- 
cussion. 

First of all, it is physically impossible for a 
county superintendent to visit and supervise one 
hundred and fifty teachers at work in as many 
different schools scattered over four or five hun- 
dred square miles of territory. If he were to de- 
vote all his time to visiting country schools, he 
would have only one day to each school per 
year. When it is remembered that the county 
superintendent must also attend to an office that 
has a large amount of correspondence and clerical 
work, that he is usually commissioned with au- 
thority to oversee the building of all schoolhouses 
in his county, that he must act as judge in hear- 
ing appeals in school disputes, that he must con- 
duct all teachers* examinations and in many in- 
stances grade the papers, and, finally, that country 
roads are often impassable, it is seen that his time 
for supervision is greatly curtailed. As a matter 
of fact some rural schools receive no visit from the 
county superintendent for several years at a time. 

113 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

A still further obstacle comes from the fact of 
the frequent changes of teachers among rural 
schools. A teacher visited by the county super- 
intendent in a certain school this term, and ad- 
vised as to how best to meet its problems, is 
likely to be in a different school next term, and 
required to meet an entirely new set of problems. 

This is all very different from the problem of 
supei-vision met by the town or city superin- 
tendent. For the town or city district is of small 
area, and the schools few and close together. If 
the number of teachers is large, the superintend- 
ent is assisted by principals of different schools, 
and by deputies. The teaching force is better pre- 
pared, and hence requires less close supervision. 
School standards are higher, and the coopera- 
tion of patrons more easily secured. The course 
of study is better organized, the schools better 
graded and equipped, and all other conditions 
more favorable to efficient supervision. It would 
not, therefore, be just to compare the results of 
supervision in the country districts with those in 
urban schools without making full allowance for 
these fundamental differences. 

The county superintendent is in many States 
discriminated against in salary as compared with 
other county officers, and, as a rule, no provision 
114 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

is made to compensate for traveling expenses in- 
curred in visiting schools. This, in effect, places 
a financial penalty on the work of supervision, as 
the superintendent can remain in his office with 
considerably less expense to himself than when 
he is out among the schools. In some instances, 
however, an allowance is made for traveling ex- 
penses in addition to the regular salary, thus en- 
couraging the visiting of schools, or at least 
removing the handicap existing under the older 
system. An attempt has also been made in some 
States to relieve the county superintendent of 
the greater part of the clerical work of his office 
by employing for him at county expense a clerk 
for this purpose. These two provisions have 
proved of great help to the supervisory function 
of the county superintendent's work, but the task 
yet looms up in impossible magnitude. 

The county superintendency is throughout the 
country almost universally a political office. In 
some States, as, for example, in Indiana, it is ap- 
pointive by a non-partisan board. But, in gen- 
eral, the candidate of the prevailing party, or the 
one who is the best "mixer," secures the office 
regardless of qualifications. Sharing the fortunes 
of other political offices, the county superintend- 
ency frequently has applied to it the unwritten 

115 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

party rule of " two terms and out," thus crippling 
the efficiency of the office by frequent changes 
of administration and uncertainty of tenure. 

No fixed educational or professional standard 
of preparation for the county superintendency 
exists in the different States. If some reason- 
ably high standard were required, it would do 
much to lessen the mischievous effects of mak- 
ing it a political office. In a large proportion of 
cases the county superintendent is only required 
to hold a middle-class certificate, and has enjoyed 
no better educational facilities than dozens of the 
teachers he is to supervise. The author has con- 
ducted teachers' institutes in the Middle West 
for county superintendents who had never at- 
tended an institute or taught a term of school. 
The salary and professional opportunities of the 
office are not sufficiently attractive to draw men 
from the better school positions ; hence the great 
majority of county superintendents come from 
the village principalships, the grades of town 
schools, or even from the rural schools. 

A marked tendency of recent years has been 
to elect women as county superintendents. In 
Iowa, for example, half of the present county 
superintendents are women, and the proportion 
is increasing. In not a few instances women have 
ii6 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

made exceptional records as county superintend- 
ents, and, as a whole, are loyally devoted to their 
work. They suffer one disadvantage in this office, 
however, which is hard to overcome : they find 
it impossible, without undue exposure, to travel 
about the county during the cold and stormy 
weather of winter or when the roads are soaked 
with the spring rains. Whether they will be able 
to efifect the desired coordination between the 
rural school and the agricultural interests of the 
community is a question yet to be settled. 

In spite of the limitations of the office of 
county superintendent, however, it must not be 
thought that this office has played an unimpor- 
tant part in our educational development. It has 
exerted a marked influence in the upbuilding 
of our schools, and accomplished this under 
the most unfavorable and discouraging circum- 
stances. Among its occupants have been some 
of the most able and efficient men and women 
engaged in our school system. But the time has 
come in our educational advancement when the 
rural schools should have better supervision than 
they are now getting or can get under the pre- 
sent system. 

The first step in improving the supervision, 
as in improving so many other features of the 

117 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

rural schools, is the reorganization of the system 
through consolidation, and the consequent re- 
duction in the number of schools to be super- 
vised. The next step is to remove the supervising 
office as far as possible from " practical " politics 
by making it appointive by a non-partisan county 
board, who will be at liberty to go anywhere for 
a superintendent, who will be glad to pay a good 
salary, and who will seek to retain a superin- 
tendent in office as long as he is rendering 
acceptable service to the county. The third step 
is to raise the standard of fitness for the office 
so that the incumbent may be a true intellectual 
leader among the teachers and people of his 
county. Nor can this preparation be of the 
scholastic type alone, but must be of such char- 
acter as to adapt its possessor to the spirit and 
ideals of an agricultural people. 

A wholly efficient system of supervision of 
rural teaching, then, would be possible only in a 
system of consolidated schools, each under the 
immediate direction of a principal, himself thor- 
oughly educated and especially qualified to carry 
on the work of a school adapted to rural needs. 
Over these schools would be the supervision of 
the county superintendent, who will stand in the 
same relation to the principals as that of the city 
Ii8 



TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

superintendent to his ward or high school princi- 
pals. The county superintendent will serve to 
unify and correlate the work of the different 
consolidated schools, and to relate all to the life 
and work of the farm. 

If it is said that systems of superintendence 
for rural schools could be devised more effective 
than the county superintendency, this may be 
granted as a matter of theory ; but as a practical 
working program, there is no doubt that the 
office of county superintendent is a permanent 
part of our rural school system, unless the system 
itself is very radically changed. All the States, 
except the New England group, Ohio, and Ne- 
vada, now have the office of county superintend- 
ent. It is likely, therefore, that the plan of dis- 
trict superintendence permissive under the laws 
of certain States will hardly secure wide accept- 
ance. The county as the unit of school adminis- 
tration is growing in favor, and will probably 
ultimately come to characterize the rural school 
system. The most natural step lying next ahead 
would, therefore, seem to be to make the condi- 
tions surrounding the office of county superin- 
tendent as favorable as possible, and then give 
the superintendent a sufficient number of depu- 
ties to make the supervision effective. These 

119 



NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 

deputies should be selected, of course, with ref- 
erence to their fitness for supervising particular 
lines of teaching, such as primary, home eco- 
nomics, agriculture, etc. A beginning has already 
been made in the latter line by the employment 
in some counties, with the aid of the Federal 
Government, of an agricultural expert who not only 
instructs the farmers in their fields, but also cor- 
relates his work with the rural schools. This 
principle is capable of almost indefinite extension 
in our school system. 



OUTLINE 



ri. THE RURAL SCHOOL AND ITS PROBLEM ; 

The General Problem of the Rural School 

1. The general problem of the rural school identical 
with that of all schools I 

2. The newer concept measures education by ef- 
ficiency 2 

3. This efficiency involves ( i) knowledge, (2) atti- 
tude, (3) technique, or skill 3 

4. The purpose of the school is to make sure of 
these factors of efiiciency 4 

The Special Problem of the Rural School 

1. Each type of school has its special problem . . 5 

2. The rural school problem originates in the na- 
ture of the rural community 5 

3. Characteristics of the rural community .... 6 

a. Its industrial homogeneity 6 

b. Its social homogeneity 7 

c. Fundamental intelligence of the rural popula- 
tion 8 

d. Economic status and standards of living . . 10 

e. Rural isolation and its social effects .... 10 

f. Rural life and physical efficiency ..... 1 1 

g. Lack of recreations and amusement .... 12 

4. Recent tendencies toward progress in agricultural 
pursuits 12 

5. The loss of rural population to the cities ... 13 

121 



OUTLINE 

The Adjustment of the Rural School to its Problem 

1. Failure in adjustment of the rural school to its 
problem 17 

2. The rudimentary education received by rural 
children 17 

3. Failure of the rural school to participate in re- 
cent educational progress . 18 

4. *rhe rural school inadequate in its scope ... 19 

5. Need of better organization in the rural school . 20 

6. Inadequacy of rural school buildings and equip- 
ment 21 

7. The financial support of the rural school ... 22 

8. Summary and suggestions 23 

II. THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE 
RURAL SCHOOL 
The Rural School and the Community 

1. The fundamental relations of school and com- 
munity 25 

2. Low community standards of education ... 25 

3. The rural community's need of a social center . 26 
a. Its social isolation a serious drawback ... 27 
d. Grave moral dangers arising from social iso- 
lation 28 

c. Rural environment more dangerous to youth 
than city environment 29 

d. Effects of monotony on adults 30 

4. The rural school as a social center 30 

5. The ideal rural school building and equipment . 32 

6. Social activities centering in the school • • • 33 

7. Reorganization needed to make the rural school 
effective as a social and intellectual center ... 34 

122 



OUTLINE 

The Consolidation of Rural Schools 

1. Consolidation the first step toward rural school 
efficiency 35 

2. Irrationality of present district system .... 36 

3. Obstacles in the way of consolidation .... 37 

4. The present movement toward consolidation . . 38 

5. Effects of consolidation 40 

a. On attendance 41 

b. On expense . 41 

c. On efficiency o . . 42 

6. The one-room school yet needed as a part of the 
rural system 42 

Financial Support of the Rural School 

1. Lack of adequate financial support of rural 
schools 43 

2. DifEerence in city and rural basis for taxation . 44 

3. Low school tax characteristic of rural communi- 
ties . 45 

4. State aid for rural schools . 46 

5. Safeguards required where the principle of state 
aid is supplied 47 

6. Summary and conclusion 48 

The Rural School and its Pupils 

1. The spirit of the pupils as a test of the school . 50 

2. The negative attitude of rural pupils toward their 
school 51 

3. Causes of this defection to be sought in the school 5 1 

4. The problem of poor rural school attendance . . 52 

5. The consolidated school as a cure for indifferent 
attitude and poor attendance 53 

123 



OUTLINE 

III. THE CURRICULUM OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

The Scope of the Rural School Curriculum 

1. The modern demand for a broader education . 57 

2. The meagerness of the rural school curriculum . 58 

3. The rural child requires full elementary and high 
school course , . . 60 

4. Disadvantages of sending rural child to town 
school 60 

5. Necessary reorganization in rural school offering 
broadened curriculum . ' 62 

6. General nature of the new curriculum .... 62 

The Rural Elementary School Curriculum 

1. Relation of the curriculum to social standards 
and ideals 64 

2. The mother tongue 65 

a. Necessity for its mastery 6$ 

b. Learning the mechanics of the language . . 66 
c» Developing the art of expression, oral and 

written « 67 

d. Creation of love for reading 67 

e. Formal grammar out of place in the elementary 
school 68 

3. Number , . . . , 69 

a. The prominent place occupied by arithmetic 69 

b. Importance of development of the number 
concept 69 

c. An undue proportion of time devoted to 
arithmetic 70 

d. Desirable changes in the teaching of arith- 
metic 71 

124 



OUTLINE 

4. History and civics 71 

a. The right and duty of every person to know 
the history and government of his country . 72 

b. History not to deal chiefly with war and 
politics, but to emphasize the social and in- 
dustrial side 72 

c. The library of historical books 73 

d. Functional versus analytical civics .... 73 

5. Geography and nature study 74 

a. Advantage of the rural school in this field . 74 

b. The social basis of geography 75 

c. Application of geography and nature study 

to the farm . , 75 

6. Hygiene and health 76 

a. Criticism of older concept of physiology for 
the elementary school 76 

b. Content of practical course in hygiene . . 77 
€. Application of hygiene to the child's health 

and growth 77 

7. Agriculture 78 

a. Adaptability to the rural elementary school . 78 

b. Content of the elementary course in agri- 
culture 79 

c. Relation to farm life 79 

8. Domestic science and manual training . . , 79 

a. Place in elementary rural school 80 

b. What can be taught 80 

c. Its practical application ... . ...» 80 

9. Music and art 81 

a. Necessity in a well-balanced curriculum . .81 

b. Appreciation rather than criticism the aim . 81 
10. Physical training .81 

125 



OUTLINE 

a. Need of physical training of rural children . 82 

b. Rural school athletics 82 

The Rural High School Curriculum 

1. Rural high schools not yet common .... 83 

2. The functions of the rural high school ... 84 

3. English in the rural high school ...... 84 

a. Its aim , , ." 85 

b. Points of difference from present high school 
course 86 

4. Social science to have an applied trend ... 86 

5. The material sciences as related to the problems 

of the farm 87 

6. Manual training and domestic science ... 89 

7. A modified course in high school mathematics . 89 

8. Foreign language not to occupy an important 
place 90 

9. The high school course to include music and 

art . 90 

IV. THE TEACHING OF THE RURAL SCHOOL 

The Importance of Teaching 

1. Teaching the fundamental purpose of the school 92 

2. The child and the subject-matter ..... 92 

3. The teacher as an intermediary between child 
and subject matter 93 

4. Hence the teacher must know the nature of the 
child 94 

5. The teacher must know the subject-matter of 
education 95 

6. Failure to measure up to this requirement . , 97 

126 



OUTLINE 

Teaching in the Rural School. 

1. The degree of training of rural teachers in the 
subject-matter 98 

2. Present lack of professional training . . , .100 

3. The effects of inexperience loi 

4. Short tenure of service in rural schools . . .102 

5. Level of teaching efficiency low 103 

6. Improvement through consolidated schools . . 104 

The Training of Rural Teachers 

1. Inexperienced and untrained teachers begin in 
the rural schools 105 

2. Normal schools supply few teachers to rural 
schools ' 106 

3. A reasonable demand for training of rural teach- 
ers .... » 107 

4. Rural teacher training in normal high schools . 107 

5. The rural teacher's training must be adapted to 
spirit of rural school 108 

Salaries of Rural Teachers 

1. Salary as a measure of efficiency. ..... 109 

2. Salaries of rural teachers compared with town 
and city teachers no 

3. Necessity of increased salaries in 

4. Increase in salary and in efficiency must go to- 
gether Ill 

5. Salaries in consolidated schools ...... 112 

Supervision of Rural Teaching 

I. Impossibility of giving district schools efficient 
supervision , . 112 

157 



; OUTLINE 

2. Obstacle in number of schools and frequent 
change of teachers . . 113 

3. Comparison of work of county superintendent 
with city superintendent 114 

4. Political handicaps on county superintendent .115 

5. The necessity of better educational standards 
and better salary for the county superintendent 116 

6. Women as county superintendents 116 

7. Efficient supervision possible only under a con- 
solidated system 117 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



THE RIVERSIDE EDUCATIONAL 
MONOGRAPHS 

GENERAL EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

Dewey's MORAL PRINCIPLES IN EDUCATION 35 

Eliot's EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY 35 

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Fiske's THE MEANING OF INFANCY 35 

Hyde's THE TEACHER'S PHILOSOPHY 35 

Palmer's THE IDEAL TEACHER 35 

Terman's THE TEACHER'S HEALTH 60 

Thorndike's INDIVIDUALITY 35 

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Bbtts'sNEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 60 

Bloomfield's VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE OF YOUTH... .60 
Cubberley's CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF EDUCA- 
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Cubberley's THE IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS .35 

Perry's STATUS OF THE TEACHER 35 

Snedden's the PROBLEM OF VOCATIONAL EDUCA- 
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Trowbridge's THE HOME SCHOOL. In i>reparation, 
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Campagnac's THE TEACHING OF COMPOSITION 35 

Cooley's LANGUAGE TEACHING IN THE GRADES--.. .35 

Earhart's TEACHING CHILDREN TO STUDY 60 

Evans's TEACHING OF HIGH SCHOOL MATHE- 
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Haliburton and Smith's TEACHING POETRY IN THE 

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Hartwell's TEACHING OF HISTORY 35 

Palmer's ETHICAL AND MORAL INSTRUCTION IN 

THE SCHOOLS 35 

Palmer's SELF-CULTIVATION IN ENGLISH 35 

SuzzALLo's TEACHING OF PRIMARY ARITHMETIC 60 

SuzzALLo's TEACHING OF SPELLING. In preparation. 

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